Abstract for: Using System Dynamics in Workforce Strategy at NHS Wales Building Towards a National Workforce Digital Twin

Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) is the strategic workforce body for NHS Wales. HEIW makes a valuable contribution to addressing strategic and specialist workforce issues. As part of HEIW’s Workforce Strategy, Planning, and Intelligence function the HEIW Analytics team produces a range of workforce information and workforce modelling at a national and sub national level for NHS Wales. Workforce demand and supply modelling supports planning decisions that contribute to meeting patient needs to investigate if current strategies will be sufficient to enable future demand to be met. HEIW collaborated with Decision Analysis Services to develop a generic strategic workforce model to enable the rapid generation of national workforce demand and supply projections. The system dynamics based model links to operational databases and includes web enabled dashboards. The model has been influential across NHS Wales, supporting senior leaders in the development of key strategic workforce actions. The modelling has provided a comprehensive and holistic view of the workforce. The model provides an evidence-based, data-driven projections visualising current and future workforce needs and supply gaps, as well as evaluating the impact and feasibility of various strategies. The development of HEIW’s Strategic Workforce Model is the first step to a strategic workforce digital twin of the Welsh healthcare workforce. This will enable HEIW to undertake rapid strategic analysis based on current workforce statistics and trends. This will streamline strategic analysis, enabling a rapid response to emerging workforce challenges and alternative scenarios and policies to be reviewed.