Supporting workforce development
Developing a skilled and flexible workforce lies at the heart of Skills for Health's work across the UK health sector. That's why we are working with a wide range of partners to trial and test our workforce development tools and competences through our National Demonstrator Sites (NDS). Our aim is to support healthcare organisations redesign roles and teams to underpin new services and improve services for patients and services users.
The NDS are invaluable in showing how our products and services can be used in different clinical and service areas, demonstrating best practice and underlining the importance of a flexible competence-based approach. We are also supporting the work by providing training and awareness workshops around how to use the tools and Skills for Health competences.
Northwest London Trust is demonstrating how Healthcare Assistants can upskill to Associate Practitioner (AP) level, using competences to inform a tailored training package. The work will put the successful newly qualified APs on a career pathway for further progression, up to foundation degree level, and facilitate succession planning for other healthcare support workers.
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has a number of streams of demonstrator work. One has been using competences for a new role of Advanced Level Practitioner, to realign the Trust's Hospitals at Night service in a more cost effective way. A variety of health professionals will be able to progress into the role, with a tailored training package to plug any skills and knowledge gaps.
Another work stream at the Trust in Berkshire led to the development of a new modular training programme in foundation level psychological therapies, enabling staff in NHS bands 1-4 to step up their learning and enhance future career progression.
Other organisations have been using competences independently. In Scotland, NHS Forth Valley used our Team Assessment tool to highlight future service development needs, supporting work to shift the balance of rehabilitation and intermediate care for older people from acute to community hospitals. The work led to the formation of two new roles of Rehabilitation Support Worker and Senior Clinical Nurse within NHS Forth Valley.
Thanks to their flexibility, our national competences were used by Clinovia, a member of the BUPA group, to improve education, training and service redesign in a newly acquired phlebotomy service. Using our online database Clinovia benchmarked skills against competences and then developed a standardised education and training programme and clinical training package ensuring new and existing employees are working to the same standards.
For more information on the competence database see www.skillsforhealth.org.uk
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust creates accessible training
Clinovia implements Skills for Health competences
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