People development is very important to Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which provides high-quality community and specialist services within Birmingham and the West Midlands. The Estates and Facilities Service has a key role in providing an estate that is fit for purpose, and in the right locations, to serve the current and future needs of the population in line with Trust planned activity.
As part of this, the People Development Initiative promotes training opportunities and support to all personnel within the Land and Property, Capital Planning, Facilities Management, and Estates teams. Professional and personal development are viewed as a key component in empowering the teams to manage services and properties, which are an essential support for clinical services in delivering best care alongside local, pathway, and equalities-driven outcomes for communities.
Estates and Facilities at the Trust provide a full range of property services, either directly in-house, or by managing procured services, across an extensive Freehold and Leasehold property portfolio.
To deliver outcomes for the team, the key challenges in promoting and providing training opportunities alongside fulfilling the day-to-day work, whilst maintaining and further improving the high-quality service, have had to be balanced. This has been accomplished by developing a balanced approach, whereby members of the team can identify their training needs and by encouraging managers and teams to have a flexible approach that accommodates training needs in service planning.
“We believe that having a people-first approach is important in achieving our service aims and results in having a committed and dedicated workforce, which then in turn further enhances service delivery,” says Claire Hennessy, Director of Estates & Facilities at the Trust.
The team has undertaken and completed a wide range of training and courses, including:
• Inspire Leadership
• ILM Leadership Training
• Better Business Cases Foundation Masterclass
• Coaching and Mentoring Masterclass
• AM1 & AM2 Electrical
• IPC Cleaning Training
• Waste Training Certification
• Prince 2
• Professional CPD including HEFMA, IHEEM, RICS, ACES
• Shadowing and development opportunities
• Big Conversation
• Collaborative working with Commissioners/BSOL/ICS stakeholder groups
• Premises Assurance Model Training
• Water Quality and Compliance
• NHS Property Conferences
• HTM Training
• Essentials For Estates
Working collaboratively across the Estates and Facilities teams brings service, time and cost improvements. This ranges from promoting agile working at community teams across divisions, through to implementation of sustainable building solutions, including renewable energy solutions and installation of electrical vehicle charging points. The E&F teams also contribute to infection prevention and control and cleaning standards, and ensure compliance at buildings through HTM requirements.
As part of the People Development Initiative, the aim is that all training is transferable to workstreams, so that as well as staff development, service users, the public and staff benefit from the team’s knowledge and high standards of care.
To facilitate the learning, many external resources are utilised, ranging from professional membership bodies to external training organisations, stakeholder organisations including Birmingham & Solihull Integrated Care System and other NHS Trusts.
Most importantly, the sharing of information is promoted, within and across teams to ensure a collaborative approach, and that work is always in line with the values of Birmingham Community NHS FT - Caring, Respectful, Responsible, Open and Inclusive.
The People Development Initiative from Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS FT was shortlisted for one of HEFMA’s 2022 awards.
