Optimising the Flu Campaign Portlet on My ESR Dashboard
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the Trust responsible for managing Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool University Dental Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
The Trust was created on 1 October 2019 when the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust merged. It is one of the sixteen NHS Provider Organisations that are commissioned by Cheshire & Mersey Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Diane Haddock is the Associate Director of Occupational Health at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as well as being the Chair of the Cheshire & Merseyside Occupational Health Network (C&MOHN). At the beginning of Flu Campaign in 2023 Diane was looking at different ways of engaging with employees to improve the Flu Vaccination rate. Diane told us:
Every year we always look at the latest ideas and initiatives to help us promote the Flu Vaccine campaign and promote the wider services that the Occupational Health team provides. I was really interested when Mike Winstanley, Senior ESR Account Manager for the North of England spoke to me about how portlets on the Employee ESR Dashboard could help with the campaign.
Following this initial conversation an invitation was extended from the C&MOHN for the ESR North Regional Team to attend a meeting in July 2023 to discuss how utilising a portlet could help promote the uptake of flu vaccines.
Diane added:
Each Trust within the ICB will deploy different strategies to promote flu vaccination uptake within their Organisations. Organisations are always looking at different ways to engage with employees to encourage them to have their annual Flu Vaccine in time for the “Flu Season.
As ESR is used considerably by employees for many functions, including accessing online payslips and keeping personal data up to date, it was felt that developing a Flu Campaign bespoke ESR Portlet to sit alongside other staff portlets to signpost employees to how they can obtain their jab might improve the uptake.
The Portlet is hosted on the ‘My ESR Employee Dashboard’. The North Region ESR team presented a basic concept of how the portlet might work.
The Portlet is made up of 3 sections but can be tailored if any of the sections are not applicable.
Section 1: is a countdown timer for when the flu campaign ends, it is broken down by days, hours, minutes and seconds.
Section 2: this section looks at the uptake of the Flu Jab against each of the respective staff groups that are within the Organisation, e.g. Nursing, Medical, Allied Health Professionals etc… It was felt that having this section clearly visible on the Portlet would encourage those staff groups that had a poor uptake increase their numbers. There is no reliance on this data being entered into ESR to enable this section.
Section 3: this section was dedicated to signposting where employees could obtain their jab.
It was agreed by the C&MOHN that Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LUHFT) would be the first organisation to go live with the portlet. A meeting was arranged between the Occupational Health Leads, the ESR Portal Site Administrator, the ESR Functional Account Manager and ESR Implementation Advisor to agree the sections it would be useful to have within the portlet.
Diane said:
Initially we only wanted sections 1 and 3 included and we collated the necessary information to build the portlet. We liaised with the ESR Implementation Advisor who talked us through how we could build and publish the portlet. We also developed communications aimed at employees to highlight the portlet was now live. The portlet was launched in September 2023 and not long after the launch we decided to include section 2. Access to the base code for the portlet allowed us to change the staff groups included so they aligned with Frontline Worker Flu Vaccine reporting groups. This proved very useful as it allows us to emphasise which staff group uptake needed to increase while linking with the Trust’s Commissioning for Quality and Innovation targets (CQUIN).
Using ESR also led to workforce data being used more effectively. We developed a robust recording mechanism for vaccinations. During the campaign this helped to identify physical locations where uptake was low and where our Vaccination Team focussed their efforts to increase uptake. We are keen to use the Portlet again this year.
Following the launch of this initiative a further 7 organisations went live with the Portlet on the employee dashboard in ESR. Once the flu vaccination campaign concludes the portlet can be removed from the dashboard and other initiatives can be promoted instead. Following the success of the campaign several organisations in the Merseyside & Cheshire ICS are now looking into the launch of a portlet to promote the work of the Veterans Network across the region.
The principle behind the portlet is that organisations can use the same code and adapt it for other campaigns such as the Staff Survey and any other time sensitive initiatives they are promoting.
Liverpool has used their Flu Campaign portlet again this Autumn/Winter and Diane has told us:
The portal is particularly helpful in affording a quick link into our roving sessions and uptake. It is great to be able to signpost our staff to the page. Its value cannot be underestimated. If we didn’t have this portal, uptake could be worse and certainly when benchmarking against Cheshire & Merseyside Trusts we are comparable and better than some.
For further information please contact Stuart Jones Workforce Information Lead, Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust stuart.jones1@liverpoolft.nhs.uk
How the North East & North Cumbria Provider Collaborative - People Digital is optimising ESR in readiness for the Future NHS Workforce Solution
Not going fast alone but going far together
In February 2023 the People Digital Group was created as part of the North East and North Cumbria Provider Collaborative. The purpose of the Group was to explore working together across the ICB to develop a strategy to improve digital capability. Donna Watson is Head of HR Strategy and Transformation at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Trust and Chairs the People Digital Group for the Provider Collaborative and she told us:
Over the last few months we have been working together across the collaborative to get a better understanding of our baseline position of the use of ESR. The ESR Self Service Levels of Attainment Assessment has been vital in helping us to understand the overall position.
From the ESR Assessment we could see across the region we had a great level of maturity of Self Service which is a key part of our preparation for the transition to the NHS Future Workforce Solution. Establishment Control in ESR was identified as our priority area. There are many benefits to optimising Establishment Control; it creates great synergy between HR and finance information. Not only does Establishment Control help with the transformation to the future NHS Workforce Solution it also supports the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
We recognise the barriers and challenges to this work, and we are not all starting at the same point. The other complexity is the demand for our services at the same time as doing this project. We have collectively discussed as a strategic network along with our NHSBSA ESR Regional Engagement Team about how to navigate this programme alongside the demands of different baselines. To that end we have come up with a couple of solutions; a workshop to help learn from one another and create informal channels to help support one another outside of a formal process.
My advice would be to optimise now to give yourself enough time to transfer over the future NHS Workforce Solution and to engage with your ESR Regional team. This is “about not going fast alone but going far together.
The ESR State of Readiness Workshop took place on 24th September 2024 at a location in central Newcastle. All the organisations who are part of the NENC provider collaborative were present, and the session was Chaired by Donna Watson and facilitated by the North ESR Regional Engagement Team's Mike Winstanley and David Bromilow.
Donna spoke about the NENC People Digital Programme and how that was creating their people digital strategy and change programme. Initially, the programme had identified four development workstreams; innovation, collaborating on HR services, systems and licensing and the ESR state of readiness – in preparation for the future NHS Workforce Solution.
Arlene Atkinson, Deputy Director of Finance at Northumbria Healthcare Trust was present. Arlene spoke about why building establishments is important on the journey of the Provider Collaborative and the importance of finance and ESR teams working together.
The workshop also considered ‘why and how’ to build establishments in ESR, and reflected on lessons learnt which included feedback from other organisations that have implemented Establishment Control. Additionally, Charlotte Cheal and Alice Higgins from the NHSBSA Workforce Optimisation team also presented some insight into supporting Establishment Control projects and how they can offer practical support to organisations.
Following the workshop each organisation is now looking at how they are going to implement Establishment Control and further updates will be provided to the NENC People Digital Group.
If you require any guidance or assistance with implementing Establishment Control or would like to know more then please contact your NHSBSA ESR Functional Account Manager.