care in uncertainty: PROJECT 1
Building a Supportive Culture to Retain Resident Docttors
2023-2024 Innovation Fellowships, funded by the British Academy
The first Care in Uncertainty project focused on retaining Resident Doctors. In 2011, 71% doctors carried on training after Foundation Year 2. By 2022 this had fallen to 30% with two thirds of Resident Doctors leaving their training programme. The Care in Uncertainty team explored the root causes for this high number of withdrawals and looked at what improvements are needed to retain Resident Doctors.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The Care in Uncertainty team collated their research findings which was published by the BMJ Leader into a summary document to inform NHS Trust leaders titled ‘NHS Trust Leaders can Prevent Resident Doctors’ Burnout and Quitting’, published July 2024. Click to open and download.
Driving Impact for Resident Doctors
Dr. Wen Wang and her team have made significant strides in disseminating research findings and practical solutions to enhance the working lives of resident doctors. Through collaborations with NHS England, the General Medical Council (GMC), Royal Colleges of Medicine, the Academy Resident Doctors’ Committee, and senior leaders from 10 NHS Trusts, the team has:
- Shared knowledge with 65 Directors of Medical Education and over 200 trainers.
- Co-created impactful practices with 500 resident doctors to ensure smooth employment transitions.
- Reached 1,000 healthcare professionals across the NHS.
Below is a list of invited talks, keynote speeches, and engagements that reflect the team’s ongoing efforts:
26/11/2024 ‘Leadership Building and Influencing’, Foundation Year doctors Weekly Teaching, the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
19/11/2024 ‘Building a Supportive Environment’, Foundation Year doctors Weekly Teaching, the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
08/11/2024 ‘Growing Our Doctors for Tomorrow’, University Hospitals of Leicester Annual Educator Day University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
21/10/2024 ‘The Resident Doctors’ Retention Project’, Global Healthcare and welling centre, Keele University
4/7/2024 ‘ What challenges are our doctors of tomorrow facing? Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust annual medical education conference
3/06/2024 ‘Compassionate leadership to retain trainee doctors’ NHS West Midlands Deanery-Directors of Medical Education quarterly meeting
22/5/2024 Compassionate leadership to retain trainee doctors’ Master class for trainers, NHS England West Midlands Deanery
26/04/2024 ‘Findings from the Trainee Doctors’ project’ NHS East Midlands Deanery-Directors of Medical Education quarterly meeting
07/04/2024 interviewed by the media team at the University of Leicester - Behind the Research: what you didn’t know about junior doctors and their workload struggles
13/03/2024 ‘3Rs to retain trainee doctors’ Mini-maser class for consultants, NHS England West Midlands Education
29/02/2024 ‘Trainee Doctors’ Retention Project’, NHS Workforce Event: Recruitment, Retention and Wellbeing
16/02/2024 ‘Trainee Doctors’ Employment Transition’ Interviewed by Dr Mat Daniel (Coach for medical doctors/health care team)
27/11/23 ‘ Findings from the Trainee Doctors’ Retention Project’ University Hospitals of Leicester EDI workgroup
27/6/2023 British Academy Innovation Fellowship Reception ‘The Future of Health Care’
30/11/2022 partnership with UK Parliament ‘Engage with the UK Parliament to Support Better Policy’
20/09/2022 ‘Sustain NHS Workforce Project’ Local Academics and Health Partnership Board
7/04/2022 NHS Health Executive live event, Panellist to address staff shortage and solutions - National Health Executive workforce event
22/03/2022 UK Parliament - Invited to offer oral evidence at the Health and Social Care Select Committee on 22 March 2022.
PROJECT TEAM
RESEARCH TEAM
Dr Wen Wang
Project Lead | University of Leicester
Dr Mark McCarthy
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS TrustCO-CREATION PANEL
Ms Louise Harmer
Medical Education Lead, Georger Eliot Hospital NHS Trust
Dr Andrea Wilkinson
Clinical Education Fellow, George Eliot Hospital
Dr Christpher King
Chief Registrar at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust
Dr Harry Knifton
Clinical Teaching Fellow, University Hospitals of Leicester
Mr Luke Ruffle
Head of Medical Education, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Christopher Leng
Consultant Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trusttestimonials
This doctor retention project has been an important initiative, focussing on the actions needed to improve the lives of resident doctors, increase retention and ultimately lead to improvements in patient safety and experience. The project has brought together key stakeholders and enabled informed discussion around critical issues such as reducing burnout. Its focus on compassionate leadership and the recommendations around responsive leadership, supportive relationships and recognition of the contribution of resident doctors, give helpful guidance to healthcare providers and the project has reached out to over 65 Directors of Medical Education as well as 500 resident doctors and over 1000 healthcare professional across the NHS.
Professor Jonathan Corne
Dean of Postgraduate Education – NHS England East Midlands
This is a really exciting project which gets to the heart of the important reasons that we lose so many doctors to training. Issues relating to workload, and burnout are identified and the changing patterns in the intentions of training doctors to work within medicine are highlighted.
Drawing on the links between effective top-down, board-to-floor communication and bolstering morale seems intuitive, but practice tells us that this is far from the reality. The centrality of relationships to effective individual and organisational working and ultimately patient safety is underlined, and 3 cores messages to leaders spelled out in the form of ‘Responsiveness, Relationships and Recognition.’
This initiative has been useful for my organisation when thinking about the future of workforce planning and how we best make use of our doctors in training as we develop them to become NHS leaders of the future.
Dr Hany George El-Sayeh
Consultant Psychiatrist, Director of Medical Education -Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust
Participating in the doctor retention project with the University of Leicester proved highly valuable for our team and our doctors. Through surveys and interviews, the project provided rich insights into the experiences of our doctors, which we shared at an Education Leaders Development Day. Building on the findings, we implemented targeted interventions, including a stronger focus on induction and empowering more direct on-the-job training into placements. We also addressed key themes by designing and delivering a series of well-received and inspiring talks for Foundation Year 1 doctors. In addition, we used AI to review how our policies could better support doctors in training and organized two successful networking events for medical registrars and consultants to improve relationships and invited the CMO to speak to all doctors about winter pressures and trust plans to improve senior management interaction. These initiatives collectively strengthened our support systems and demonstrated the tangible benefits of collaboration.
Professor Helen Steed
Director of Medical Education at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Lead DME in the West Midlands
PROJECT articles
- Date: 17 July 2024
BMJ Letters: Senior trust leaders who show understanding and compassion are crucial in retaining junior doctors
- Date: 27 June 2024
BMJ Journal: Can compassionate leadership of senior hospital leaders help retain trainee doctors?
- Date: 17 May 2024