High Quality Education for
Healthcare Support Workers
Angelo Varetto – Head of NOS, Qualifications and
Apprenticeships, Skills for Health
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.
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
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
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
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?
Current Priorities
• Cavendish workstreams in partnership with Skills for Care
and HEE
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–
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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
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
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
Thank You
Angelo.Varetto@skillsforhealth.org.uk