Office of the Chief Scientific Officer: winner, workforce innovation award

The new electron linear accelerator facility, which offers an independent radiotherapy calibration service and a unique research facility.

The NHS's healthcare scientists punch above their weight. Although they account for just 5% of the health service workforce, their work is linked to 80% of patients' clinical diagnoses.

Historically though, the career paths and education and training of the 50,000 NHS scientists who come from 45 different scientific backgrounds, has been adhoc.

But now the healthcare scientists have their own defined career paths, which can take somebody starting off in a staff support role right to the top to become a consultant clinical scientist.

The pathways, backed up by a training and education framework, are part of Modernising Scientific Careers (MSC), which has already been three years in the making and is still being implemented. The intention is that, once fully introduced, healthcare scientists will be a sustainable and flexible workforce that can meet the future demands of the NHS and respond to changes brought about by science and technology.

Chief scientific officer professor Sue Hill says: "We recruit some of the best science graduates in the country but we were not developing them to their full potential.

"I think we now know the value of healthcare scientists working in the health system – we have pulled this valuable resource out of the shadows and placed them centre stage so that their knowledge, skills and expertise is more explicit and they can fully make their contribution.

"I think through this programme we have also ensured the sustainability and fitness for purpose in the future of the healthcare scientists' workforce to respond in a health system which is going to be driven by science and technology."

The MSC allows scientists to move between different scientific specialities, broadening their experience and creating a more flexible workforce.

MSC, which has been described as an ambitious and "complex workforce change programme", had to take into account NHS staff and patients, as well as all four UK countries, two Whitehall departments, the higher education sector, professional bodies, the royal colleges and sector skills councils.

Hill says one of the key obstacles was building new relationships with higher education: "We had to enter into and establish new partnerships between higher education and the NHS in particular, which weren't there before.

"We also had to make sure that people understood what they were letting go of, what they had before, and how this would be better and more flexible and was more about the future."

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University College London hospital: workforce innovation runner-up

University College London Hospital's training programme helped staff identify weaknesses in their clinic’s processes.

A leading London teaching hospital is giving staff the power to decide how outpatient clinics are run, which is transforming services, reducing waiting times and improving the patient experience.

University College London hospital sees more than 800,000 people in outpatient clinics every year.

But it realised it had to improve the system after a questionnaire revealed 47% of outpatients ranked the service they received as "not at all" or "fairly" well organised, and 59% complained that they had to wait at least 30 minutes before they were seen in a clinic.

The trust's quality, efficiency and productivity team designed a 24-week staff training programme which, with the support of service improvement coaches, aimed to help clinic staff identify where there were weaknesses in their clinic's processes and procedures and to come up with solutions to solve the problems.

So far the team has worked with 31 different multi-disciplinary staff teams and 300 outpatient clinics.

The results are impressive. The endocrinology clinic has halved waiting times to 45 minutes by staggering patient arrival times and realigning clinic templates. The musculoskeletal clinic has cut its waiting list from 15 weeks to seven by pooling its booking queues system.

The introduction of a 24-hour telephone advice line in maternity has reduced clinic waiting times, taken the pressure off labour wards and improved the experience of patients.

Louise Molloy, productive programme manager, says: "In essence, this programme gives teams the permission to focus on and improve their services.

"It allows them to take all those things that they see are not working and bring them together with the right staff, and working with a professional coach, to develop a programme of work to solve those problems."

At least 80% of outpatient clinics are scheduled to go through the process by 2015.

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United Response: workforce innovation award runner-up

United Response Stamp of Support programme encourages carers to allow people with disabilities to take sensible risks.

A disabled woman made herself a cup of tea for the first time after her support workers realised providing her with a surface-mounted cup and a hot water dispenser meant she was no longer in danger of scalding herself.

Staff at the charity United Response came up with the solution because they realised that the benefit of making a cup of tea far outweighed the possibility of her being scalded. The support workers felt confident that it was a risk worth taking.

A young adult with a learning disability now travels to work by bus on his own, rather than taking expensive taxis. The staff knew there was a possibility that he could get lost on the way, so they gave him a mobile phone to ring them if needed. Staff realised that the financial and personal benefits were greater than the chances of him getting off the bus at the wrong stop.

Both cases illustrate the success of the charity's Stamp of Support initiative – which is encouraging "positive risk-taking" by staff in the organisation, which supports 1,300 adults with learning disabilities, physical disabilities or mental ill-health.

The charity wanted its 3,500 support staff to have the confidence to take a calculated risk when making decisions which would help service users achieve their "hopes and dreams".

"We didn't want them to risk their safety, but we wanted them to know that so long as they have acted reasonably then we will support them all the way," says Shonagh Methven, the charity's senior business partner for risk management.

The Stamp of Support slogan now appears on all its health and safety material and on a staff keyring.

Staff guidance and advice to support them to make a positive risk decision – even if it ends in failure – has been written into the charity's risk management strategy.

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