Exit planning
The retention of the mental health support workforce is really important – they provide the bulk of hands-on care (Nuffield Trust, 2021, pg. 2) and as the recruitment campaign to support Covid-19 efforts showed, are key to keeping services running. Exit planning is a powerful tool to help with the retention of staff and should be part of your workforce planning activities.
Reducing and maintaining minimal healthcare support worker vacancy rates is essential to supporting the NHS’ recovery from COVID-19 and the delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan.
Key themes in exit planning for the mental health support workforce
Effective exit planning aims to truly understand why staff are leaving (usually via an interview or survey), analyse themes and create an action plan to resolve issues. It is likely your HR Team will have a template and process to follow.
There is no readily available data on retention rates among mental health clinical support staff specifically, but when looking at support staff in hospital and community services some themes emerge (Nuffield Trust, 2021, pg. 46):
- 16% of support staff working in hospital and community services left because of retirement, compared to 13% of all staff. Refer to the section ‘Workforce planning: older workers’ in this toolkit.
- 5% of support staff working in hospital and community services left because of dismissal, compared to 2% of all staff. Explore practical resources in the Day-to-day management section of this toolkit to understand more about this topic.
- When looking at specific reasons for support staff working in hospital and community services who left voluntarily, more than a fifth (21%) left due to ‘work-life balance or incompatible working relationships’.
- Higher proportions of support staff working in hospital and community services stated that their reason was ‘health or adult dependence or child dependents (13%), compared with 8% of all staff. 9% said further education or training’, compared to 5% of all staff.
It is recommended that you use the criteria mentioned above as a base for the type of data you could collect for your team or Trust and benchmark where you are against this national picture. The themes that emerge will help you prioritise your action plans.
Refer to the Day-to-day management section of this toolkit to understand more about creating a safe, secure working environment for mental health support staff and to understand the reasons why staff may leave the workforce.
Exit planning best practice: Trust initiatives
The following examples from NHS Trusts in the UK highlight best practice in exit planning. Use these examples to help shape your own exit planning approach.
Solent NHS Trust
What did they do?
Solent NHS Trust worked with NHS Shared Business Services to design an anonymised exit interview process and bespoke reports, which captured both leaver data for statistical analysis and qualitative information to inform the organisation's decision making.
What was the result?
There was a marked increase in the number of leavers engaging with the exit interview process – 75 percent during the 4-month pilot, compared to 1 in 3 previously. With improved understanding of ‘reasons for leaving’, the Trust was able to take positive action and increase nursing staff retention in line with the Model Hospital national average, surpassing it as of October 2018.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust
What did they do?
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust retention programme included enhancing the quality of data around nurse turnover to understand the reasons behind staff leaving and staying. They changed their process from a paper form to a shorter online survey, which line managers were responsible for signposting staff towards, and offered a conversation as soon as the letter of resignation was received.
What was the result?
The response rate to the survey and field completion both significantly increased. In the first six-months of launching the ‘Itchy feet’ conversations, which take place with staff who are thinking of leaving the Trust, or who want to try something different before they resign: 26 staff engaged in the conversation and all 26 staff stayed within the Trust.
West London NHS Trust
What did they do?
West London NHS Trust carried out a review of its exit interview data in collaboration with Great with Talent and developed a new initiative: ‘promotion, praise and promise’. HR teams now work closely with other parts of the service, such as learning and development to make changes to processes according to this data.
What was the result?
So far, this initiative has boosted staff morale and engagement, improved staff survey results relating to recognition by five percent, and increased retention, with nearly a ten percent drop in early attrition. This initiative recently won a Healthcare People Management Award (HPMA).
Exit planning: To Do List
In order to build on exit planning for the mental health support workforce you should: