NBT a Model Employer

North Bristol NHS Trust has been awarded an important NHS accreditation for successful people management.

IWL (Improving Working Lives) Practice Plus is the model of people management best practice and calls upon NHS Trusts to demonstrate that they have gone on to make improvements since earlier assessments.

North Bristol NHS Trust is only the fifth Trust in the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority area to have achieved the accreditation to date.

Practice Plus challenges NHS employers to prove, not just that policies are in place but, that they are making a measurable different to the working lives of most staff in all staff groups.

It incorporates seven key areas: human resources strategy and management, equality and diversity, training and development, healthy working, flexible working, communications and staff involvement and flexible retirement, childcare and support for carers.

An external validation team visited NBT during November 2005 and met with individuals and groups of staff to gain a detailed view of the consistency of application of best practice in people management.

Their evidence was then moderated to ensure consistency between NBT and other organisations before being submitted to an accreditation panel.

Feedback found real strength in a number of areas particularly health and safety, training and development and a number of people plans.

Alastair McDougall, Director of Human Resources expressed his delight with the report. He said: ìThis endorses all the good work that has been carried out to enhance our approaches to supporting our people.

ìIWL is a stretching standard and achieving practice plus is an independent confirmation of our status as an excellent employer with high standards.î

The validation team also identified a number of specific areas of good practice including using the new hospital plans as a focus for service development and workforce redesign, effective employment services, literacy and numeracy provision and a commitment to flexible working arrangements.

They also praised the Trustís in-house nursing and clerical bank ñ NBT eXtra, internal communications (particularly the staff newsletter Insite) and the proactive equality and diversity work that is carried out by staff.

The Trust has also welcomed the fact that the team also highlighted a number of areas for continuous improvement. These included the development of a coaching culture across the Trust, more opportunities for cross directorate working and on-going commitments to improve communications for staff.