Work and achievements

Making a difference where it really matters

Skills for Health publishes an ongoing series of case studies to help illustrate how its skills solutions translate into action, and help employers to transform healthcare through better skills. These provide one of the best insights into our work and its impact, whether it’s improving service delivery in Breast Screening or using competences to improve Coronary Heart Disease services.

Visit the case study library on the Skills for Health website.

Key areas of work

Skills for Health is entering an important phase as it seeks to build on the work it is already doing to meet the changing needs of employers across the health sector. The following gives a taste of our current work and achievements:

National Workforce Competences and National Occupational Standards

Every day, people who work in the health sector must carry out numerous activities effectively and consistently, no matter who is doing it and wherever they are in the UK. Skills for Health has developed National Workforce Competences (NWC) to define what individuals need to do, what they need to know and which skills they need to carry out an activity. Competences can be used for a wide range of workforce design and development purposes. They can be used across the board – by all health professions, and all levels of staff, whether in the independent or voluntary sectors or the NHS. Many competences have National Occupational Standard (NOS) accreditation, which means that they meet strict criteria and can be imported into a qualification. Competences have already proven to be highly valuable for employers across the sector. One example of their use has been in shaping the role and development programme for the new Community Matrons.

Competence application tools

Skills for health has produced a number of tools for employers to enable them to find the competences they need, and then utilise or apply them to best advantage within their workplace. The ‘search’ based tools include: the competence search tool; the NHS KSF mapping tool; the Health Functional Map, and the Career Framework tool. Application support tools then enable employers to create, save and manage lists of competences and to perform essential functions, such as using competences to create job descriptions.

Sector Skills Agreement

The Sector Skills Agreement for Health brings employers, stakeholders and government together to take action to improve the skills and productivity of the health sector workforce in the UK. It maps out the skills employers need their workforce to have to perform effectively, and how these skills will be supplied.

2007/8 also saw the completion of a key element of the SSA, the Sector Qualification Strategy which sets out a strategy for the development of qualifications specifically designed to meet the needs of the health sector.

Joint Investment Framework

As part of the Sector Skills Agreement in England, Skills for Health has brokered an entirely new and groundbreaking agreement - the Joint Investment Framework (JIF) - between the Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). This will bring in an extra £100 million of funding per annum on a three-year rolling basis to address healthcare skills needs.

Health Sector Strategic Alliance

To support the implementation of the Joint Investment Framework, a new England-wide Health Sector Strategic Alliance (HSSA) has been formed with representation from the SHAs, the LSC, Skills for Health and sector employers. It will ensure a sustainable joint action agenda, encompassing the key workforce priorities and strategic policy direction within workforce plans across the sector.

Further information about Skills for Health and its work can be found at www.skillsforhealth.org.uk