Our NHSBSA strategy recognises that our people are crucial to our overall success and this is equally true when it comes to data. Our people are central to the successful delivery of our data strategy. Their knowledge, skills, and collaboration play a pivotal role in interpreting, analysing, and leveraging data effectively. This doesn’t happen by accident, and we need to continue to nurture, invest in and support our people so that they have the right capabilities, opportunities, and tools to enable data-informed decision making across the NHSBSA and health system.
We experience challenges in attracting candidates with the right data knowledge and skills when recruiting to certain technical data roles. In 2022 we welcomed our first data apprentices to the NHSBSA, a key investment in growing our own talent for the future and a small way of giving back to our local communities. There are lessons we can learn to enhance this experience and ensure apprenticeships deliver maximum value without placing undue demands on our existing colleagues.
Recruitment challenges have been exacerbated by the coding language used within our current enterprise data warehouse, delivering our Modern Data Platform (MDP) should address this.
Having the right operating model in place enables the coordination of people, tools, and processes to deliver efficiently and effectively. As our data capacity has grown organically, several operating models have emerged across the organisation and there is a lack of clarity in some areas. This can cause confusion and generate inefficiencies. In conjunction with the technical solution, we are also designing the future Data Operating Model (DOM) to support our MDP and deliver for our customers.
Through this work we will look to establish a clear approach which enables colleagues to self-serve from our data platform and visualisation tools with trusted data management and data modelling practices in place and guidance available from subject matter experts (SMEs). We will also ensure we have the right leadership roles and the right guidance in place to support data colleagues regardless of where they sit within the organisation. Additionally, we will establish a training and engagement plan for colleagues to smoothly integrate the new technology into our operational framework.
Competency frameworks are a useful tool to support the development of career pathways. In 2022 we took part in the beta testing and were one of the early adopters for the National Competency Framework (NCF) for Data Professionals across health and care. NCF is an NHS focussed framework that provides key building blocks for the professionalisation of the data and analytical workforce. This is a key enabler for the development of career pathways and continuing professional development for data professionals across our organisation and beyond.
In the past, our development offering for data professionals has been inconsistent, driven by team or project priorities or motivated individuals. By utilising frameworks such as the NCF, aligning with business need and drawing on capabilities already available within the organisation and across the wider system we have begun to adopt a more standardised approach to development which delivers for our people as well as our organisation.
Professional registration provides many benefits for colleagues including the opportunity to validate their skills and knowledge, demonstrate their commitment to their profession and help guide career planning. While professional registration is an emerging area in data, there are a number of existing routes for data colleagues. We are committed to supporting our data professionals to gain and maintain professional registration by promoting opportunities and providing advice and guidance.
We will continue to refine our development offering ensuring we have career pathways in place for all our data professions, clear development paths they can follow and aligning to the GROW approach to performance to ensure they have regular performance, wellbeing and development conversations and have personal development plans in place.
Several communities have been established to support all colleagues who use data and bring them together to share knowledge, promote standardised approaches and provide opportunities for professional development. These communities are thriving, with over 250 members, they convene regularly and are further enriched by our Viva Engage community, ensuring the free flow of knowledge and ideas.
We have however, identified a gap in formal training and development pathways for data users who are not necessarily data professionals and therefore fall outside professional frameworks, certifications, and professional registrations. We will address this by broadening the training and development offering and continuing to develop our approach to data literacy. Similarly, there are limitations to the support and training for the data tools we have adopted. This results in duplication of effort and inefficiencies across the organisation. We will overcome this by establishing service support wrappers and training for each of our data tools.
"In a data driven organisation, data is not something done by a single team within the organisation, nor is it only the remit of data professionals, everyone across the organisation is involved in generating data and we should all be able to use it to help manage and improve our day-to-day work."
Commitment
We will continue to support our people by:
- driving forward the professionalisation of data across the NHSBSA and beyond
- delivering a programme to improve data literacy across the NHSBSA, including enhancing our data communities
- providing our people with the training, tools and frameworks to achieve their best
- continuing to welcome data apprentices to our organisation, growing talent for the future