Data catalogue to support workforce research
This project will identify and examine relevant UK-wide workforce data sources to explore workforce sustainability, including staffing numbers, skill mix, workforce wellbeing, and the impact of workforce factors on patient care.
The objectives are to:
- Develop a workforce data catalogue: Compile and categorise workforce data sources to support future investigations into workforce sustainability, staffing trends, and service resilience.
- Assess workforce challenges and sustainability: Identify key workforce pressures, including recruitment and retention issues, staff well-being, and the impact of multidisciplinary working within different service models.
- Identify gaps in the research landscape: Compare findings with existing NIHR and other major research funder priorities to highlight areas requiring further investigation.
We will systematically organise workforce data sources to develop a data catalogue. This will catalogue metadata such as data origin, variables, update frequency, and access conditions, ensuring transparency, consistency, and ease of integration across datasets.
Data will be interrogated to understand issues relating to staffing numbers, skill mix, stability indexes, and sickness absence rates.
We will also incorporate insights from UK wide same day, urgent and emergency care service map on workforce dynamics and service delivery challenges. We will model key relationships and trends identified in the data analysis, such as the impacts of staffing levels and skill distribution on service resilience and patient care. This will inform future research phases by providing clear benchmarks for assessing the effectiveness of workforce interventions on service quality and staff wellbeing. This study will run until August 2026 as part of the wider SURGE partnership.
