Defining and creating roles

Define and analyse new and existing roles, and create new job descriptions to deliver more effecient services.

The competence database, with its Search Tool and My Lists functions, gives you a powerful way to define new roles as part of a competence-based approach to workforce planning.

Developed with health employers in the NHS, independent and third sectors, the database details more than 1,500 individual competences, each of which describes the performance criteria, knowledge and understanding needed to carry out a work activity. All are approved as National Occupational Standards, recognised throughout the United Kingdom.

Searching and managing these competence ‘building blocks’ using the Search Tool and My Lists function lets you take a logical approach to designing and developing your workforce, based around patient needs rather than traditional role boundaries.

It’s an approach that has been proven effective in practice throughout the UK, and can be used in projects ranging from large-scale service transformation to incremental team changes.

The competence search tool offers a variety of ways to interrogate the database.

  • A simple keyword search lets you search for competence titles, summaries and key words associated with a particular function or role. This can be a valuable starting point for the design of roles associated with new care pathways
  • Or browse the database using the most popular categories of role profiles, team profiles and competence clusters, which are pre-loaded for your convenience
  • You can also browse competences mapped to specific Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) dimensions or particular services or areas of work.

The My Lists function gives you a powerful means to store and manage the lists of competences generated by your searches, and then use them for a wide range of workforce design and development purposes.

By saving your competences into lists, you can return to them time and time again, and perform a wide range of functions including:

  • Outputting them for use in job descriptions, recruitment and assessment activities
  • Linking them to our Team Assessment Tool, to perform competence and skills mix analyses
  • Linking them to our Self-Assessment Tool to assess yourself or your team against desired competences.

Go to the competence search tool.

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