Keynote presentations

Our keynote presentations were centred around the themes of the Conference - Innovation, Inclusivity and Inequalities. They highlighted the partnership delivery in Buckinghamshire, with its unique challenges as a 'county of contrasts' and the health inequalities that exist within areas of deprivation across the county. The Buckinghamshire health and social care landscape has strong foundations for integration and collaboration to address the significant challenges that exist across that landscape.

The diseases contributing most to Buckinghamshire's gap in life expectancy in wards of differing deprivation levels are preventable; shining a light on the health inequalities in Buckinghamshire through Opportunity Bucks aims to address these gaps, promote health literacy and improve support for self care and prevention in areas more likely to experience these inequalities.

Stephen Barnett took the attendees through a short quiz about some common misconceptions around the Buckinghamshire VCSE sector.

1. What does the acronym VCSE stand for? VCSE stands for Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise
2. What is the annual income of the VCSE sector in Buckinghamshire? £670 million
3. How many paid members of staff in Buckinghamshire VCSE organisations are there? 11,000
4. How many regular volunteers are there in Buckinghamshire? 47,000

Jim Thomas gave a presentation on the VCSE workforce in Buckinghamshire - who they are, what they do and why they do it. Some of the BOB VCSE Health Alliance's next planned steps include:

• To research the NHS workforce’s understanding of the VCSE sector and pilot training & development based on the VCSE sector research and a short placement within a relevant VCSE organisation focused on early career stages.
• To scope community volunteering practices by one NHS Trust’s paid staff, how the employer could make volunteering easier for them and how those staff could be enabled to draw on their community insights at work.
• To design a pilot in an NHS Trust whereby staff approaching burn-out or with ‘itchy feet’ could undertake a temporary placement in the VCSE to offer their skills and develop different skills and insights here, then return to NHS in due course.
  

Placements: Challenges and Opportunities

• Presentations and a Q&A Panel
  

Attendees heard presentations from a range of perspectives on placements, setting out the local Buckinghamshire landscape for health and social care placements.

• Luisa Clarke from Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust walked the room through how work experience is different from work placements, how vital it is for young learners to experience different careers, and some of the challenges to facilitating work experience that currently exist.
• Alison Tresidder from University of Bedfordshire spoke eloquently on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of the current local placement landscape. Bucks has a good placement availability but lack a centralised approach, which could help facilitate learners into primary and social care - two areas experiencing difficulty as learning environments.
• Tom Devey from the Aylesbury UTC, and Francesca Clayman and Kiran Bharj from Buckinghamshire College Group each spoke briefly on the UTC's placement needs and capacity, T-Level work placement requirements and innovations helping with those placement needs.

A panel of sector experts and professionals from across the Buckinghamshire health and social care sector heard questions from the attendees; conversations emerged around the importance of centralised access to placements across the county, and transparency around where in the system those placements currently are, as well as where in the system they could be with some collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Innovation Workshop by Shane Costigan

Following the placements discussions, Shane Costigan (Pharmacy Dean, NHS England) took attendees through an energetic and innovative workshop - aiming to get people networking and thinking about the big picture in Buckinghamshire.

Discussions highlighted the need for continued and more developed collaboration throughout the system, the importance of preventative care education and training, wider access to CPD, ensuring clarity in workforce pathways and transparency to move learners and professionals across the system. Breaking down established and outdated processes and operations is crucial to enable new and more relevant ways of working to become established throughout the workforce. Shane's workshop got everyone thinking together in unexpected ways, and unsurprisingly yielded bold ideas that may have the potential to shift Bucks' workforce education and training landscape. We'd like to thank Shane again for his enthusiasm and innovative thinking.

Closing Remarks

The team behind the Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy would again like to thank everyone who was a part of and who attended 2024's annual Conference, for contributing so enthusiastically to the success of the event. The event themes - Innovation, Inclusivity and Inequalities - were at the forefront of, not only the presentations and items making up the agenda, but also the conversations happening parallel, between professionals from all over the local health and social care system. Placement conversations were at the forefront of the day - the need for more visibility and more centralised access across the county, into social care, primary care and the VCSE sector.

Looking ahead to the 2025 annual Conference, The Academy are considering ideas and points highlighted in the workshops and talks detailed above, and looking ahead to the 2025 Conference, are planning for a focus on delivery and impact of the Academy and its stakeholders.