Workforce data, planning and transformation

Podiatrists 

The West of Scotland Podiatry workshop used the Skills Maximisation Toolkit to assess podiatrists' contributions to service user care, focusing on workforce profiles, workload information, and competencies. They identified that over 50% of podiatry staff were aged 35–40, highlighting the need for delegation of work and staff support and a high number of retirals in 10-15 years. 

They used information from Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland, and created a task analysis tool to identify and classify tasks as administrative, clinical, managerial and other. They also identified clinical tasks that required the unique contribution of the podiatrist and mapped these tasks to the Knowledge & Skills Framework and Skills for Health competencies. 

Barriers identified included having no competencies identified for certain tasks or competencies not being fully reflected, a reluctance to delegate some tasks to support workers, and the need for better education for support workers. Benefits included clearer recognition of podiatrists' contributions and progress toward addressing challenges. 

The action plans created through the SMT process focused on reducing administrative tasks, delegating clinical tasks to support staff, developing education and supervision.