13/08/2007
Skills for Health aims to assist the whole of the health sector – NHS, independent and voluntary - to develop a skilled and flexible workforce to improve health and healthcare. Ensuring staff have the opportunity to develop the skills they need to modernise healthcare delivery is crucial to achieving this.
One of the overarching aims of Skills for Health is to improve employability and participation in learning. Our objective is to do this through implementing, with partners, a strategy to improve language, literacy, numeracy (LLN) and information and communication technology (ICT) skills.
These skills are fundamental to ensuring that individuals are able to work safely and effectively, and to access opportunities for development and learning. Employees who improve their LLN and ICT skills are better placed to make informed decisions about their career options. It is often the case that individuals who take the opportunity to enhance their LLN skills then pursue further learning and development.
There are benefits too for the healthcare organisation. Improved LLN can help raise the quality and safety of service provision, particularly in situations where staff take on new tasks and responsibilities.
Skills for Health has embarked upon a series of initiatives which will assist healthcare organisations to unlock the potential of their workforce. One of these initiatives is the development of an online Guide to LLN for the health sector, the first phase of which can now be found on these web pages. The Guide has been developed to assist health care mangers to embed LLN and its implementation. It provides a framework to support managers in developing a Whole Organisation Approach to LLN, addressing how to incorporate it into existing systems and processes.
We acknowledge that there are many organisations with a wealth of experience and examples of good practice in this area and hope that you will see the Guide and the LLN web pages as a means of sharing this good practice.
Please go and try the website now at http://www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/lln . If you have any feedback, please contact us using our on-line form or e-mail us at lln@skillsforhealth.org.uk - we look forward to hearing from you.
