Midlands

Find out more about the Midlands SPF

Priorities for 2026/27

Maintaining positive partnership relationships at local, system and regional levels, particularly in the context of workforce reductions, financial pressures, and employee relations challenges.
Influencing the evolving policy landscape, including NHS structural changes and the development of the 10-year health plan.
Improving staff experience in line with NHS staff standards, with a focus on managing employee relations casework, promoting health and wellbeing to reduce sickness absence, supporting flexible working, and addressing violence, aggression, and sexual harassment at work.
Promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), enabling staff to bring their full selves to work, supporting anti-racist practice, and addressing workplace discrimination, including implications of the UK Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers.
Understanding and integrating new ways of working into the workforce, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of new roles such as physician associates and nursing associates.

The Midlands and East of England SPFs held their annual partnership conference on 3 December 2024, attended by more than 70 delegates. The event focused on partnership working to address health inequalities and promote equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Delegates focused on regional priorities and discussed specific challenges and opportunities, including pay gaps, antiracism and neurodiversity.
The East and West Midlands SPF networks were merged to create a unified Midlands SPF, enhancing the forum's influence and reach, expanding its pool of ideas and expertise, and aligning with NHS England's geography, which has reduced duplication.
We submitted a Midlands SPF response to the consultation on the 10-year health plan.
We continued to explore what good partnership working looks like at an integrated care system level.
We continued to maintain meaningful engagement with NHS Employers and NHS England colleagues on core priority focus areas, including the Long Term Workforce Plan and the NHS People Promise.
We developed a regional sexual safety plan, which looked at how organisations in the Midlands can meet the national requirements set out by NHS England as part of its operational planning guidance 2024/2025.
We produced a comprehensive set of principles for employers to consider when working with neurodiverse colleagues.

Read the key principles developed by the Midlands SPF to support system level partnership working and alignment with the regional SPF.

The Midlands SPF co-chairs include representation from both former Midlands regions:

Trade union co-chair - David Limer, UNISON
Trade union co-chair - Oliver Hopkins, Regional Organiser, UNISON
Trade union co-chair - Chanel Camilleri-Willis, Regional Organiser, UNISON
Management co-chair - Ali Koeltgen, Chief People Officer, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (West Midlands)
Management co-chair - Lorna Lord, Deputy Chief People Officer, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (East Midlands)