Case study: approach to secondments at The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Based on a discussion held with Amanda Gaston, Deputy Director of Finance – Financial Planning, Performance and Improvement, The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (ROH)

Hi Amanda, can you start by telling us about your role and where you work?

“I’m Amanda Gaston, and I work at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham. My current role is Deputy Director of Finance, where I oversee financial planning, performance, and improvement. I’ve been here for eight years now. I’ve held a variety of different roles during that time, and I’ve been in my current role for about three years.”

Can you give an overview of how the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital approaches secondments?

“Over recent years, we’ve worked to adopt a more positive attitude towards secondments. We believe that a proactive approach to supporting secondments within the team—where team members are encouraged to take on secondment opportunities—benefits both the individual and the wider team. Through our succession planning, we’ve focused on ensuring that we create a supportive environment where people are excited to take on secondments and where we can attract talent individuals who are interested in these opportunities.”

Do you offer internal or external secondments, and how do they differ in their benefits and challenges?

“We do a combination of both. We move people around internally within departments and teams, which includes individuals joining the finance team from other areas of the hospital. We also have people who go on secondments to other departments within ROH. Additionally, we offer external secondments where individuals go to other organisations, and we welcome people here on secondment from outside the trust.

Both internal and external secondments come with their own challenges and benefits. Internally, the advantage is that it helps departments work better together. For example, when someone joins another team within the organisation, it often leads to stronger relationships. They gain a fresh perspective on their role and can better understand the challenges faced by other departments.

External secondments, on the other hand, offer broader learning opportunities and a wider range of experiences, which is incredibly valuable. Logistically, internal secondments tend to be a bit easier to manage since the paperwork is simpler, as the individual remains employed by us. With external secondments, whilst there’s more administration involved, they do get that wider breadth of experience.”

Are there any rules or expectations regarding how long someone stays on a secondment, and whether they return to their original role?

“It’s handled on a case-by-case basis. The recent secondment opportunities we’ve had have generally lasted between 12 months and two years, but we do sometimes have shorter secondments such as 3 or 4 months. The shorter secondments can actually be more challenging to manage, especially from a backfill perspective.

In terms of returning to their original role, this is something we handle carefully and openly. We’ve encountered situations where an individual doesn’t return to their original post, and we know that can be unsettling for them. To avoid any surprises, we make sure to have clear, open conversations upfront. When someone expresses interest in a secondment, we discuss the possibility that their original role might not be available when they return. In many cases, people are open to trying something different upon their return because the secondment has helped them grow professionally.

The main advice is that it’s important to have that open conversation right at the beginning of the secondment to manage expectations from both sides.”

How do you approach backfilling positions when someone goes on secondment?

“We approach backfilling in various ways, depending on the specific circumstances of each secondment. In the past, we’ve managed it by recruiting on a fixed-term basis, which might involve bringing someone in from another organisation or from within the trust internally. For shorter-term secondments we’ve used temporary staffing through our staff bank.

Backfilling posts can create a bit of a domino effect. To manage this, we try to plan as much as possible with workforce and succession planning. We also take placements through the Finance Management Training Scheme (FMTS) and the Insights Placement Scheme, and for FMTS we sign up on a system-wide basis now, which helps us keep a pipeline of talent ready to fill any gaps that may arise.

Having regular appraisals and talent management conversations with your team is key to understanding their career goals. By doing this, you can get a sense of where people want to go and when, which allows you to plan ahead for any potential gaps in the team. It’s about being proactive and not reactive.”

Can you tell me a bit more about your system-wide approach to the grad scheme?

“We express interest as a system—so across all organisations in the system, we determine how many graduates we want to support. From there, we allocate placements based on where there’s the greatest need for resources across the different teams. This approach works really well and helps us stay ahead of any potential staffing issues.”

Some organisations would say they avoid secondments because they don’t want to lose the most valuable members of their team. How would you respond to that?

“I’ve found that if someone expresses a desire to go on secondment and you decline that opportunity, there’s a good chance they will look to leave the department permanently anyway. If you don’t support their development or give them a chance to grow, they may seek that experience elsewhere.

If you support secondment opportunities, it can really strengthen trust and loyalty within the team. People appreciate when you’re not just focused on the needs of the organisation but also on their individual development. By offering secondments, you’re showing that you care about their growth, and in turn, they are more likely to come back, even if it’s not immediately after their secondment. They know your organisation fosters a supportive environment, so by encouraging secondments you can actually help retain valuable team members in the long run.

Even when individuals go on secondment and ultimately pursue their careers elsewhere, you’ve played a key part in their development.”

You’ve highlighted many of the benefits of supporting secondments, but are there any particular challenges you’ve found?

“Yes, there are definitely challenges as well. One of the key struggles we’ve had in the past is the inconsistency of notice periods between different organisations. This can create some difficulty when managing secondments, as we’ve had instances where an individual goes on secondment with a one-month notice period, but the person we bring in to backfill has a three-month notice period. We’ve also had an instance when an individual applied for a secondment with us, but the organisation they worked at insisted that they hand in their notice if they wanted to take the secondment post.

To break down these types of barriers we are moving towards having a ‘staff passport’ model which would allow staff to move more freely between organisations, especially within a system.

Another challenge we faced as a trust occurred when an individual joined on secondment from a local provider, and there was internal speculation and worry that the secondment meant there were bigger trust-wide changes about to take place. Other organisations may have experienced something similar when secondments have taken place between commissioner and provider organisations – the fear that individuals have an ulterior motive for joining your team.

Our lesson from this was that the communication and transparency could have been handled better to allay fears. Ensuring open and honest dialogue from the beginning is crucial in these situations, so that everyone is on the same page and can ask any questions they might have.”

What would you summarise as the key benefits of secondments, both for the individual and the organisation?

“For the individual, secondments offer the chance to grow and flourish in ways that may not always be possible within their current role. It allows them to develop new skills and gain fresh experiences.

From an organisational perspective, it’s a win-win. Not only do you support individual development, but you also gain the benefit of their experience when they come back to the team. Even if they decide to go on and pursue their career elsewhere, you are demonstrating the supportive culture of your organisation and fostering better relationships with the other organisations in your system and wider region.”

What are the next steps for ROH in terms of secondments and talent management?

“Looking at this on a system-wide basis is key to progression. If we keep pushing for more collaborative work across systems, it’ll give us the opportunity to support secondments more effectively, helping develop individuals who can take on leadership roles in the future. I’m very passionate about making sure that people want to stay and develop their careers within NHS finance.”