Merging the East and West Midlands SPFs
Overview
The Midlands SPF merger has been made permanent and the forum will continue to meet as a combined Midlands SPF. This follows a six-month trial between July and December 2024 where the East and West Midlands SPFs met as one group.
Forum members gave unanimous positive feedback that working collaboratively across the region enabled richer conversations, broader perspectives and increased shared learning.
The co-chairs agreed the merger had provided greater opportunity to work together on the issues that matter most to NHS staff and confirmed the move would be made permanent from December 2024.
Benefits
The combined Midlands SPF better meets the region's priorities by facilitating:
- a larger, stronger forum with greater reach and ability to influence local and regional workforces
- a larger pool of ideas and expertise to draw upon
- alignment to NHS England (NHSE) geography, reducing meeting duplication for NHSE colleagues
- the potential to attract more external speakers.
East and West Midlands representation
Separate staff side pre-meetings for East Midlands and West Midlands colleagues continue to ensure issues and discussions can be raised by both patches in a balanced way, while taking advantage of the synergies and similarities across both.
The co-chairs include representation from both patches:
- Rob Simcox – Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (East Midlands)
- Ali Koeltgen – Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (West Midlands)
- David Limer – UNISON (East Midlands)
- David Kirwan – Royal College of Nursing (East Midlands)
- Oliver Hopkins, UNISON (West Midlands)
- Chanel Willis, UNISON (West Midlands)
Next steps
The Midlands SPF is looking forward to meeting in person in March 2025 to continue to build relationships and agree the forum’s priorities and plans for 2025/26.
