Health Informatics

Aims / objectives  

Skills for Health are reviewing the Health Informatics (HI) National Occupational Standards. The Competence Division will also be working closely with the Qualifications Team to develop a draft qualifications structure and assessment strategy based on the NOS.

Key contacts

To contact us about this project, please email competences@skillsforhealth.org.uk

Key timings and milestones

The project commenced in June 2009 and is due to complete at the end of March 2010.

Milestone 1 – Draft NOS for Health Informatics and draft Qualifications structure – December 2009

Milestone 2 – Final NOS for Health Informatics and final Qualifications structure – March 2010

The above milestones cover 4 Phases:

Phase 1. Research and Scoping (June – August 2009)

Phase 2. Draft new and revised NOS (September – November 2009)

Phase 3. Testing of NOS (December – February 2010)

Phase 4. Completion (March 2010)

Status / progress to date

- Scoping and gap analysis complete - view report

- Qualifications mapping report complete

- Strategy and Reference Groups established

- Consultation workshops planned for November (see newsletter for details)

- Draft revised NOS produced (December 09)

Wider Consultation and Field Testing

All practitioners and stakeholders in the Health Informatics field are now encouraged to look at and review the content of the draft revised and new NOS (HI1 to HI23).  The consultation will take place until 12th February 2010.

The main mechanism for providing feedback on the content of the draft revised NOS is via a consultation questionnaire to structure individual feedback. In addition, a separate field test process is available for those who are willing to spend a little more time using and testing some of the draft NOS.  The project team will be happy to provide advice to anyone wishing to be involved in the field test process.

Consultation papers:

• ‘Read Me First’ - Consultation Guidance
• Draft Revised HINOS (HI1 to HI23)
• Consultation Questionnaire or complete the online questionnaire

Full instructions for both consultation via questionnaire or field testing are included in the ‘Read Me First’ Consultation Guidance above.

The HINOS review project has now completed and the draft revised and new standards have been submitted for approval to UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills). The process can take several weeks, after which the standards will be made available on the Skills for Health website. If you wish to be informed when the standards are available please email Nathan.laxton@skillsforhealth.org.uk The March 2010 newsletter gives details of the final draft standards.