In this episode we are talking about the volunteer workforcewith Maeve Hully, Director of Volunteering at Helpforce, and Julia Clarke, Director of Public Participation at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust(SaTH).

Helpforce recently won “Staffing Solution of the Year” 2026 in the HSJ Partnership Awardsfor their work with more than 60 NHS trusts, including SaTH.

We discussed volunteer roles and how they complement andwork alongside the NHS workforce. We also explored Helpforce’s innovative Volunteerto Career programme, which you can read about here: Helpforce| Building your workforce

Helpforce is the only independent UK charity focused onestablishing high‑impact volunteering services across the health system.

Its team:

Founded in 2017, it works with NHS trusts, localauthorities, hospices and voluntary sector partners, directly andindirectly supporting hundreds of thousands of people.

SaTH’s volunteer website is Volunteering –SaTH  and you can read about some oftheir success stories below, including some of those Julia discusses.

Volunteerdrivers go the extra miles to bring comfort and care beyond hospital walls –SaTH

Hospitalseeks volunteer buggy drivers to support patients and visitors – SaTH

Athousand hours and counting – dedicated volunteers hit major milestone – SaTH

Shrewsburymum trains as midwife thanks to volunteer scheme - BBC News

You can also follow Helpforce on their social media sites - LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and BlueSky – andsign-up to the charity’s monthlynewsletter.

Colin Lewry talks us through how to set up a Workforce Hub and how it can help you deliver your workforce plans.

This episoode is also available with slides on You Tube

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAcyBlx7XBq4entR8HzapKiqSqCmLTJbt

This is no. 4 in a series of Workforce Planning Webinars from the AHCWP.

Colin Lewry talks thorugh how to create a workforce plan or strategy and where to get the information that goes in it. He describes how to present the plan and communicate it to proposed audience.

The training is available with slides on You Tube on the following playlist, along with other webinars in the series.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAcyBlx7XBq4entR8HzapKiqSqCmLTJbt&si=wn1pjfokfAijyPmL

This is a recording of a training session for AHCWP members on Workforce Redesign.

It is also available on You Tube, where you can see the slides.

https://youtu.be/GLA4cKlWzXU

Colin Lewry discusses how to analyse and design a role using process mapping.

This is a recording of an AHCWP Members Webinar dicussing Workforce Planning Challenges.

It is the second in a series of Webinars and is also available on this You Tube Playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAcyBlx7XBq4entR8HzapKiqSqCmLTJbt

The Challenges and Solutions Cards and "Why Workforce Planning is Impossible " article, mentioned are available to members of the AHCWP . You can join here for free:

https://ahcwp-qa.azurewebsites.net/JoinUs.html

Resources mentioned in the webinar are:

Insights on Innovation Podcast:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/ahcwp/episodes/Insights-on-Innovation-from-our-Members-e30vb5l

https://apple.co/3FQNUHa

AHCWP Skills Builder

https://ahcwp-qa.azurewebsites.net/app/home

How to use the Skills Builder

https://youtu.be/B28ugbVo8Tc?si=5FhUmCSQnsKU3iuX

The Bumper Book of Workforce Planning

https://amzn.eu/d/cUsuZwO

Colin Lewry takes us through various workforce planning approaches and discusses which to use in different situations. He also talks about resources for further support, including :The Association of Health and Care Workforce Planning. A free association supporting Health and Care Workforce Planners with resources, training and networks.https://www.ahcwp.com/The Bumper Book of Health and Care Workforce Planning, by Colin Lewry, Amina Jina and Fiona Lordhttps://amzn.eu/d/cehUU4rWRaPT Workforce Planning Tool https://wrapt.org.uk/Workforce Planning Toolkit from Carados.https://www.carados.com/Training available on Carados You Tube Channel    / @caradoshealthcaremanagemen3250  

In this episode we talk to Simon Orr from the Workforce and Training Directorate at NHS England- South East. We discuss his analysis ofthe NHS Long Term Workforce Plan and the challenges it poses for recruitmentand training of the clinical workforce, along with the demographic picture.

The Long Term Workforce Plan can be found here

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/nhs-long-term-workforce-plan-v1.21.pdf

If any members would like to read Simon’s analysis,please contact the AHCWP on [email protected]

This episode features Fiona Lord, Workforce analytics, planning and development manager at Lancs and South Cumbria ICB.

Fiona has lots of workforce planning experience and was instrumental in the development of WRaPT, amongst many other things.

Fiona tells us about modelling the impact of Associate Psycholigical Practitioners ,a new role, in primary care.

We talk about the importance of clinical input, and the challenges of planning for new roles, along with the importance of creating a repeatable process that could be used for other new roles.

On 4th March 2025, the AHCWP Members' Discussion Group talked about Innovation in workforce planning. This podcast takes extracts from the discussion, so you can hear what workforce planners think about the need for innovation and barriers they have met.

Many thanks to all the members who took part and particularly to:

Nicky Abel

Simon Orr

Rachel Gradinger

Colin Lewry,

who agreed to be featured in this episode.

The following resources were shared by members at the meeting.

In the balance: Lessons for changing the mix ofprofessions in NHS services

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/research/in-the-balance-lessons-for-changing-the-mix-of-professions-in-nhs-services

Staff College Annual Lecture 2023: "Team building -The route to better outcomes"

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWjHGkR8BZs

Colin Lewry is a director at Carados Ltd and has a long history of workforce planning. He was instrumental in developing WRaPT,

https://wrapt.org.uk/

and has worked with many health and social care teams to help them plan their workforce.

He co-wrote the Bumper Book of Health and Care Workforce Planning, along with several other books, available here:

https://amzn.eu/d/7NtundE

and is a co-founder of the AHCWP along with Graham Seward, who you can hear in episode 1.

https://www.ahcwp.com/

Colin's Linked In profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinlewrycarados/