Sector Skills Agreement (SSA)

Creating a flexible and productive workforce

Skills for Health offers solutions needed to tackle skills gaps and shortages in the healthcare sector. The Sector Skills Agreement for Health (SSA) is a series of collaborative agreements, brokered by Skills for Health, which through partnership with employers and other stakeholders, supports this process over the medium and longer term.

health staff

The agreements, specific to each country, inform what skills employers need their workforce to have and how these skills will be supplied. This enables everyone involved - employers and employee representatives as well as the organisations who plan, fund and deliver education and training -

to work together to tackle the provision of skills, both now and in the future.

SSAs cover every part of the health sector including the NHS, HPPS, voluntary and independent services. To date, more than 70 organisations across the UK have become partners to the agreements. Each agreement has been developed through gathering and presenting evidence for change and through extensive consultation and collaboration with stakeholders.

Skills for Health will monitor and update the SSA over time, incorporating and renewing agreements and partnerships and ensuring SSAs support our strategic objectives and those of our partners. There are six objectives underpinning all the SSA agreements across the UK:

  • progress the development of a UK-wide system of nationally recognised competences
  • establish modern and consistent qualification and quality assurance frameworks and assessments
  • develop common UK workforce data systems and information
  • promote innovative skills development solutions
  • develop mechanisms to strengthen employer commitment and engagement with the skills agenda
  • strengthen partnership working.

The SSAs are being managed and implemented in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and through similar developments in each of the nine English regions.   

What are Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs)?

Sector Skills Agreements are strategic action plans that detail the skills shortages and gaps in each industry, and provide direction on how they can be addressed.

Why are they needed?

The SSA is a mechanism through which every sector can:

  • address specific skills gaps and shortages
  • contribute to the sustainable and economic development of the UK economy
  • work with education and training providers to ensure that education and training is geared to the needs of the whole sector.

How are SSAs drawn up?

They are drawn up by the Sector Skills Council in close consultation with relevant stakeholders in each industry. SSAs for Health in each country have been developed by Skills for Health working in collaboration with stakeholders across the UK including:

  • Government departments
  • employers from the NHS, HPPS, voluntary and independent services
  • trade unions
  • statutory, regulatory and professional bodies
  • funding bodies and agencies
  • quality assurance bodies
  • qualifications and awarding bodies
  • education providers
  • workforce planning bodies and agencies.

Who is involved in the process?

SSAs are brokered by Sector Skills Councils such as Skills for Health working in partnership with:

Examples of delivery partners 

  • funding bodies including the Learning Skills Council, Scottish Funding Council and National Council for Education and Training in Wales (ELWa)
  • economic development agencies
  • higher education institutions and organisations
  • further education institutions and organisations
  • careers advice bodies including Careers Scotland, Careers Wales and connexions
  • Future Skills Wales and Futureskills Scotland
  • Association of Learning Providers
  • Jobcentre Plus
  • Regional Skills Partnerships
  • Trades Unions across the UK
  • the Union Academy and the rapidly growing network of Union Learning Representatives across the UK.

    • What is Skills for Health role?

    As the SSA has become an integral feature of the Skills for Health strategic, business and operational planning process, our role is to broker the SSA, monitor and update it and incorporate new agreements and partnerships. Progress to date includes creating or facilitating:

    • Sector Qualifications Strategies for each country to help prioritise new approaches to future workforce, competence and qualifications provision
    • A careers framework that is linked to the qualifications strategies. This will ensure new role developments areas are recognised through appropriate career pathways
    • Extensive and meaningful Labour Market Intelligence, coupled with a new LMI IT resource
    • Closer working with the Education funding bodies in all UK nations to develop clear mechanisms to ensure a better match between employers’ priorities and funding streams
    • Competence based approaches to workforce transformation through a number of ‘demonstration sites’ and other key initiatives –showing how national policy priorities can be translated, tested and evaluated at local level
    • Strengthening employer engagement mechanisms to build on and enhance existing networks
    • Translating the SSA at country, regional and local levels
    • Developing new approaches to the youth agenda to ensure more systematic opportunities for widening access and progression into health sector careers
    • Increasing learning opportunities for employees who have been disadvantaged and excluded in the past.

    Sector Skills Agreements for the Nations and Regions

    For the latest information on SSAs by each country and the nine English regions click one of the links below:

    Watch this space for the other countries and regions SSAs.

    What progress has been made?

    The SSA for Health has already resulted in a number of unique partnerships. In England, these include the Joint Investment Framework (JIF), and Health Sector Strategic Alliance (HSSA) between Skills for Health, LSCs and SHAs.

    Across the UK, the SSA has had a major influence on development and delivery of the Sector Qualification Strategies and the further development of research and Labour Market Intelligence tailored to the needs of each country and English region.

    How are they monitored and evaluated?

    The key features of the evaluation process are set out within each SSA action plan document, and each is reviewed on an agreed basis with partners.

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