High Quality Education for Healthcare Support Workers

1. High Quality Education for Healthcare Support Workers Angelo Varetto – Head of NOS, Qualifications and Apprenticeships, Skills for Health

2. Who We Are • Skills for Health is the Sector Skills Council, for all health employers; NHS, independent and third sector. Everything we do is driven by employer skills and workforce needs. • We help in three ways: • firstly, we provide tested solutions and tools to help improve productivity and quality • secondly, we directly support employers to plan and manage workforce development and change • thirdly, as the employers’ authoritative voice on skills issues, we represent the views and champion the effective investment in skills that employers need.

3. What is a Healthcare Support Worker? • Job title that covers a huge range of roles at Career Framework Level 1 - 5 • Nationally agreed definitions in Scotland and Wales but not in England or NI • For this presentation the term applies to those in roles that support regulated healthcare occupations in direct delivery of patient care and includes Assistant Practitioners

4. Current Education Provision • QCF qualifications at Levels 2 – 5 e.g. Level 2 or 3 Diploma in Clinical Healthcare Support or Level 2 or 3 Diploma in Health and Social Care • Scottish Vocational Qualifications • Foundation Degrees, HE Certs & HE Dips • Apprenticeship frameworks in each country • Education accredited with HEI’s and QCF AO’s • Quality Assured Lifelong Learning in the CQFW • SCQF Credit and Levelled learning • In –house training

5. Education Policy • NHS/ DH Policy Drivers • Increasing divergence in education policy • DfES & BIS policy drivers in England • Technical Baccalaureates • Richard Review of Apprenticeships in England • Whitehead Review of Adult Vocational Qualifications • Funding policies • Impact of 24+ Advanced Learning Loans in England • QCF Regulation – England, Wales and NI

6. How to Define High Quality Education? • Impact on quality of care • Quality of the learning experience • Portability/ transferability • Employer investment • Delivered through: • Regulated/ validated qualifications? • Accreditation? • External quality assurance of the training delivery?

7. Current Priorities • Cavendish workstreams in partnership with Skills for Care and HEE • Fundamentals of Care • QA of training provision • Career progression • Review of Code of Conduct and NMTS to apply to all Healthcare Support Worker roles in health • Supporting the HEE Band 1 – 5 Strategy • Development of new qualifications and Apprenticeship frameworks where there is a need and business case • Supporting the review of the Health and Health & Social Care QCF unit review

8. Skills for Health Perspective • Regulation/ validated of qualifications and associated QA • Quality Assurance of the provider e.g. SfH Quality Mark • Employer led partnership working • Maintaining transferability between: • Employers • Health and Social Care • nations • Maintaining, building, strengthening progression routes

9. Current and Future Opportunities/ Challenges • Impact of changes to funding policies • Progression into HE e.g. Advanced Apprenticeships into Nursing Degree • Divergent education policies and increasing differences in qualifications and Apprenticeship frameworks across UK • Changes to Apprenticeships in England • Potential Impact of Whitehead Review of Adult Vocational Qualifications in England • Managing potential/ actual proliferation of qualifications

10. Thank You Angelo.Varetto@skillsforhealth.org.uk