EOI Medical Workforce Working Group Chair

EOI – Chair of Medical Workforce Working Group Te Whatu Ora is inviting expressions of interest for a Chair of its Medical Workforce Group.

The Context Our health workforce is under a great deal of pressure – and Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora are committed to moving quickly to make a difference for the hard-working staff on our front-lines and in our offices nationwide. As part of our response to the challenges facing our workforce, Te Whatu Ora has established a Workforce Taskforce in partnership with Te Aka Whai Ora | the Māori Health Authority, to coordinate our efforts to start quickly addressing those problems. The Taskforce complements the Workforce Group within Te Whatu Ora, which is working to strengthen how we support and grow our workforce day to day.

Part of how the Workforce Taskforce intends to achieve change for our workforce is through the establishment of five Workforce Groups, focused on clinical roles. The Workforce Groups will be responsible for examining and understanding the issues specific to professions within their ambit, and designing innovative solutions to tackle immediate pressures and long-term challenges alike.

In doing this, Te Whatu Ora is working in close partnership with Te Aka Whai Ora, to give effect to a Tiriti-centred approach to health workforce.

The Role We’re looking for a Chair for our Medical Workforce Working Group, which will focus on strengthening pathways into and through medicine, to grow more medical practitioners with the right skills and capabilities, and a diversity that reflects the communities they serve.

The role of the Chair is to lead the Working Group to deliver on its objectives, including: • • •

identifying the critical issues facing the medical workforce in relation to how we train, support and employ clinicians identifying solutions, and developing options for government to respond – then translating these into concrete initiatives for consideration, within funding and organisational parameters working with professional bodies, unions and the health sector to understand and mediate perspectives.

In doing this the Chair will work closely with a Programme Manager who will help manage delivery and ‘hold the pen’ on the Working Group’s proposals and outputs.

This role would require around 2 days’ work per week, likely spread across at least four sessions with the Group, in addition to some further time spent working with the Programme Manager and other supporting staff to give effect to the Group’s work.

The Person A successful candidate in this role will need to be:

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an effective leader, able to advance government’s agenda in relation to the health workforce, while balancing this with the interests of affected professions and their representatives, and other stakeholders good at managing board-style groups of experienced professionals to reach concrete, deliverable solutions thoughtful, empathetic and innovative, willing to challenge orthodoxy and focused on the interests of our health workforce genuinely committed to health equity, to Tiriti o Waitangi and its implications for our role and practice, and be willing and able to evidence that in their practice.

The ideal person will need to have significant experience in health, and have respect and mana in the health community. They will also need to have sufficient experience in relation to the medical workforce to have respect and mana across likely stakeholders and groups whose interests the Group will need to bring together.

We want a Chair who has a combination of other capabilities complementary with other members of the Working Group, which might include: • • • • • •

clinical experience as a medical professional experience as a system or clinical leader with responsibilities over the relevant professional group experience navigating te ao Māori, capability in te reo Māori and / or a grasp of mātauranga Māori, particularly mātauranga applicable to hauora empathetic strengths in engaging and hearing from whānau, hapū / iwi, communities, unions, professional bodies and the sector working collaboratively other experts, as well as wider communities lived experience with or of communities historically underserved by the health system, including Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people, LGBTQI+ communities, refugee communities and migrant communities.

The work we do is all about challenging the way we have historically supported and grown our health workforce, and working to invest in and improve care for communities who the health system has historically underserved. Te Whatu Ora is committed to our workforce reflecting the diversity of the communities it serves, and encourages applicants who have lived experiences with those communities, including Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people, Asian peoples, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, members of refugee communities and migrant communities, and people of colour.

We are committed to making adaptations to the requirements of this role – including options for part-time work, flexible working and any accessibility modifications required – to ensure this role is genuinely accessible to all qualified applicants.