Community Academy Programme

Delivering evidence-informed workforce innovation through partnership

The Community Academy Programme comprises two main projects that aim to help address changing population health needs and challenges associated with primary care provision by improving staff retention, access to care, and sustainable use of resources. These projects have been developed collaboratively between ARU and Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board (MSE ICB).

The two projects are the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) Optimisation Project and the Legacy Practitioner (LP) Expansion Programme: Social Work and Speech and Language Therapy. They reflect a local workforce planning focus on population health needs, previous experience and evidence concerning ARRS roles and LPs, and engagement with local system leaders

Together, MSE ICB, ARU and provider partners have used mutual commitment to build on previous success by:

Project 1: ARRS Optimisation Project

A physiotherapist showing a patient, who's sitting on an exercise ball, a model of a human spine

Project features

Aims

The project is designed to enable the optimisation of additional roles in primary care to support future workforce planning, enhance service delivery to improve population health outcomes. This includes identifying and sharing best practice and success stories, including the opportunities for personal development, quality improvement, collaborative working and increased morale.

The ARRS was introduced in 2019 in primary care in England to support service provision. The scheme supports the recruitment of Allied Health Professionals to provide an enhanced range of healthcare services to support general practices (Baird et al, 2022).

The original range of ARRS roles was extended to include other disciplines. The specific focus for this project is FCP and Personalised Care (Health and Wellbeing Coach, Care Co-ordinator, Social Prescriber) ARRS roles, as determined in consultation with system leaders.

The multi-method, project evaluation builds on previous local (EQUIP 2021, 2022) and wider evidence (Baird et al, 2022) and involves a stratified sample of PCNs (based on deprivation indices, population density, employment model etc) from across the region. It will be completed in 2025.

As detailed in the full report, this multi-perspective study identified a range of benefits, some positive experiences of, and strategies to further optimise implementation of First Contact Physiotherapist and personalised care (Care Co-ordinator, Health and Wellbeing Coach, Social Prescriber) roles in a primary care setting.

The local nature of this study and its specific focus on particular ARRS roles enabled distinct challenges facing primary care delivery in the region to be identified, which may not be as apparent in broader studies. The inclusion of rural and coastal communities was important given the geography of the region studied. Further, improving the health of these populations has been identified as a national policy priority, making the findings potentially transferable to other areas with a similar geographical characteristics.

Read the full ARRS Optimisation Project report (PDF)

Project 2: Legacy Practitioner Extension Programme: Social Work and Speech and Language Therapy

A speech therapist working with a patient at a table

Project features

Aims

This project builds on the success of the Legacy Nurse programme, a national initiative to help improve NHS staff retention (NHSE 2020, NHS England/NHS Employers 2022), which was successfully implemented in Mid and South Essex.

This project enables Legacy staff to use their wide experience of working in a clinical setting to bridge the gap between academic and clinical settings, share good practice, and provide clinical and pastoral support for the next generation of clinicians (Clauson, 2011, Hardy, 2023). Funding was provided for two WTE Band 7 LPs for 12 months and flexible recruitment employed. Additional programme support was provided via, for example, Action Learning Sets.

SALTs and SWs were selected as the focus due to specific recruitment and retention challenges facing these professions and to support ‘levelling up’ of key areas defined as ‘left behind’ (neighbourhoods/communities with a combination of social and economic deprivation, poor connectivity (physical and digital), low levels of community engagement and a lack of community spaces and places), and help to address poor health outcomes and unfulfilled life chances. The programme evaluation will be completed in 2025.

This innovative workforce development demonstrates that embedding LP roles in SaLT SW services, with a particular focus on the retention of community-based practitioners in these professions. The evaluation indicates largely positive outcomes for multiple stakeholders by supporting service delivery, enhancing the retention of experienced staff, and making the organisation/discipline a more attractive proposition for potential recruits.

This innovation has the potential to support the current policy mandate for the ‘Left Shift’ (UK Government, 2025) from hospital to community. Introducing LPs in this context is not without its challenges, though these mirror those of Legacy Nurse initiatives and the broader introduction of other new roles in healthcare. The review offers insights for leaders seeking to enhance staff retention and service delivery using a legacy approach and has potentially wider implications for the role of LPs in other smaller healthcare professions.

Read the full Legacy Practitioner Extension Programme report (PDF)

Project team