Measures to improve the training, values and education of all NHS staff

Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter has today announced a wide ranging series of measures to improve the training, values and education of all NHS staff over the next two years and beyond. The measures have been published in the government’s mandate to Health Education England, a new arms-length body set up to give NHS training and education unprecedented focus and importance. It will be backed by £5 billion and will be accountable to ministers for delivering the goals set out in today’s document.

The commitments for Health Education England include:

Better care for people with dementia and with complex needs

• 100,000 staff to have foundation level dementia training by March 2014 with plans in place to extend this further by autumn 2013;
• training a multidisciplinary workforce able to work in both hospitals and the community, with a target of 50 per cent of medical students becoming GPs; and
• more nurses to be trained in the community, with at least 50 per cent of student nurses doing community placements as part of their training by March 2015

Read more on the DH website

This special edition of the NIHR CLAHRC community e-newsletter looks at the work CLAHRCs are doing on mental health.

Access the newsletter here.

NHS England has today (Thursday 23 May, 2013) confirmed the designation of 15 new Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs).

AHSNs have the potential to transform health and healthcare by putting innovation at the heart of the NHS. This will improve patient outcomes as well as contributing to economic growth.

AHSNs present a unique opportunity to pull together the adoption and spread of innovation with clinical research and trials, informatics, education, and healthcare delivery. They will develop solutions to healthcare problems and get existing solutions spread more quickly by building strong relationships with their regional scientific and academic communities and industry.

NHS England’s Chief Executive, Sir David Nicholson, said:  “The NHS is full of brilliant people with brilliant ideas. To spread ideas right across the NHS means working collaboratively with all those who have an interest.

“AHSNs offer a more systematic delivery mechanism so that innovation spreads quickly and successfully through the NHS, making the best possible use of precious NHS resources and in ensuring the most advanced treatments, technologies and medicines are available to patients.”

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Two new toolkits have just been released by the HRA which will be of use for researchers.

The first is a way of deciding whether or not your project is categorized as research rather than audit or service evaluation, and the second is for deciding whether or not NRES ethics approval is required. The links to the toolkits are below:

http://www.hra-decisiontools.org.uk/research/index.html

http://www.hra-decisiontools.org.uk/ethics/

The priorities encompass the organisation’s broad remit, ranging from protecting and improving the nation’s health to building the public health system and increasing its own expertise.

In a foreword summing up the scope of work PHE will cover, PHE Chief Executive Duncan Selbie said:

“We exist to serve the public through the public health system, a system led locally by elected members where responsibility for the public’s health sits alongside responsibility for jobs, housing and communities. This system is new – the combination of local government leadership for the public’s health supported by an expert national body is a first for England.

“Our aim is to cement a reputation with local authorities for our credibility and expertise, as the foundation upon which PHE will help the new system to drive transformation.”

PHE Chairman, Prof David Heymann, said: “We have listened carefully to those in the field, and to our Secretary of State and the leaders of local government, on where our priorities need to be. We can make early progress in some areas and in others it will take generations. The key is to get the balance right.”

The priorities document will be the beginning of a conversation with PHE’s partners about how to transform the public health system and create a genuine improvement in the public’s health

This guide explains organisations in the healthcare system and how they work together and includes the Statement of NHS Accountability. The Guide to the Healthcare System in England covers:

• providing care

• 

  commissioning care

• safeguarding patients
• empowering patients and local communities
• education and training
• supporting providers of care
• the role of the Secretary of State for Health

The accountability statement explains how decision making works in the NHS and fulfils the commitment set out in principle 7 of the NHS Constitution.

Download the guide here.

The Allied Health Professionals bulletin is a monthly update on policy, leadership, events and resources for allied health professionals.

Read the 2nd May bulletin