Key Messages and links to 5 August 2021

Welcome to Health Education England’s regular stakeholder bulletin. In this bulletin we will provide:

• Latest messages from our Chief Executive
• COVID-19 latest updates
• Overview of HEE education and training news

Weekly messages from HEE

Read recent messages from Dr Navina Evans, Chief Executive, HEE:

Navina welcomes Amanda

Read Navina’s welcome message to Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s new Chief Executive.

HEE COVID-19 latest updates

We have created a COVID-19 update webpage that provides guidance and information from HEE, which applies to all students and trainees. This webpage also includes HEE COVID-19 surge guidance.

To keep up to date with plans for medical training recovery, visit HEE COVID-19 webpages.

For the NHS to have consultants and GPs tomorrow, we must train them today

Read Prof Sheona MacLeod’s latest update on the recovery of training. HEE’s Deputy Medical Director discusses the ever-growing number of solutions educators are finding to support training recovery, which we have made available on the HEE website here.

Students encouraged to have both COVID jabs this summer

HEE is encouraging all health and care students and learners and those starting programmes in September, to ensure they have had both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine unless they are medically exempt.

Professor Mark Radford, HEE’s Chief Nurse, is leading HEE’s drive to encourage student vaccinations which will protect them, their families and those patients they may be caring for and enable them to take part in their clinical learning placements. This follows government guidance advising that those working in social care must be fully vaccinated and a number of NHS trusts are now requiring this from all patient-facing health and care staff. Read the full update here.

We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients:

Medical

HEE responds to GMC survey with support for doctors in training
The General Medical Council (GMC) has published its National Training Survey 2021 which provides comprehensive data and insight into learning opportunities and training progression for doctors in training; their workloads and workplace experiences; and how training has adapted to the pandemic. Over 63,000 doctors took part in this year’s survey which gathers data for all of the UK.

The survey gives doctors in training a platform to be frank and open about their experiences. HEE will be working with the GMC, and our other partners, to review this valuable feedback and see where we can act to improve training further. Read the full update here.

Rise in doctors from BME backgrounds working in the NHS welcomed
HEE has welcomed the findings of the Medical Workforce Race Equality Standard (MWRES) 2020 report the first of its kind to explore race equality among England’s doctors.

The report has found that last year more than 53,000 doctors working in the NHS were from a black and minority ethnic (BME) background, up by more than 9,000, a rise of around one-fifth, since 2017. It also highlighted that BME doctors currently remain underrepresented in senior positions, including at consultant grade roles and in academic positions.

HEE provides OUP medical and nursing handbooks
Newly qualified doctors and junior doctors can tap into two invaluable resources as begin their transition during August rotation. Clinicians can get online access to 130 medical handbooks published by Oxford University Press (OUP) as well as Oxford Handbooks in Nursing and the ‘Emergencies In…’ series along with several key textbooks including the Oxford Textbook of Medicine.

Funded by HEE’s national NHS Knowledge and Library Services means the resource is free to the NHS in England and can be accessed 24/7 via the HEE/OUP site using their NHS OpenAthens account. To find out more, email us at knowledgeforhealthcare.england@hee.nhs.uk

Nursing

New research on perceptions of the postgraduate route into nursing
Research providing insights into the postgraduate pre-registration route to a nursing degree, including how to better engage with potential applicants and raise the profile of this route, has been published by HEE.

The research takes an in-depth look at a range of issues including the motivations for applying to postgraduate preregistration nursing programmes, potential barriers to applying and how these programmes can be effectively promoted at both a national and local level. The research also highlights the impact that the current pandemic has had for some in considering changing career, in part because of the value that health and social care have to society at this time.

Meet the nursing associates animation

Nursing associates bridge the gap between healthcare support workers and registered nurses to deliver hands-on, person-centred care as part of the nursing team. They work with people of all ages in a variety of settings in health and social care.

Our new animation showcases the role of nursing associates across different settings giving practical examples of the duties being carried out and the benefits they bring to employers. These benefits include improved service delivery and patient care, improved staff retention through career progression and contribution to widening participation.

Watch our new animation to find out more.

Allied health professions

AHP strategic workforce plan

The pre-pandemic NHS People Plan workforce planning illustrated that a minimum of 27,000 additional Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) will be needed by 2024 to meet future AHP workforce demand. This requires specific attention to AHP workforce planning at system level. HEE has received funding as part of a one-year Comprehensive Spending Review settlement to support and build AHP workforce supply across the health systems.

To support senior AHP leadership of this work within provider trusts, system and region we have written to provider trusts to offer a modest non-recurrent funding allocation in 2021/22 to build their organisation’s part of an AHP strategic workforce plan (including the support workforce) and to establish initiatives within the organisation to support workforce priorities across the 14 Allied Health Professions and to work with systems through the AHP Councils to build system thinking. The intended legacy of this investment is to provide organisations, systems and regions with dedicated insight into 14 AHP specific workforce issues and solutions.

AHPs represent the third largest workforce in the NHS, and include 14 distinct occupations including; art therapists, dietitians, dramatherapists, music therapists, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, osteopaths, paramedics, physiotherapists, podiatrists, prosthetists and orthotists, diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers, speech and language therapists.

For support or more information about AHPs please contact:

Mental health

New multi-disciplinary mental health framework – Children and Young People Mental Health Inpatient Competence Framework

The Children and Young People (CYP) Mental Health Inpatient Competence Framework outlines the core competencies required for all staff working in CYP MH inpatients services. It provides a standardised, evidence-based, and compassionate approach to support the workforce to provide high-quality care for children, young people, and their families.

The project has been developed based upon extensive involvement and consultation with experts by experience, parents, carers, and families.

The NHSE/I Quality Taskforce worked with HEE to commission the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health working in partnership with UCL to deliver this project.

Please share this framework widely with your children and young people’s mental health networks. In the upcoming months, we will support further discussions to inform high-quality practice using this framework.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more, please email mentalhealth@hee.nhs.uk or visit HEE CYP Mental Health webpages.

Workforce and education initiatives

Publication of the future of work experience discovery report

Work experience provides unique insights into NHS careers – the interactions, schedules, emotions, sensations and outcomes associated with the jobs on offer. The report recommends ways in which health and care provider organisations can use work experience to help achieve their recruitment objectives whilst making work experience opportunities more visible and the process of obtaining them easier and more equitable.

The recommended options outlined in the report are ambitious, including the development of a national work experience digital platform and service similar to NHS jobs. HEE will publish its official response to The Future of Healthcare Work Experience Discovery Report in the autumn. To read the report, go to http://www.hee.nhs.uk/workexperience.

FURTHER INFORMATION

By following @NHS_HealthEdEng you can keep up to date with new information and resources as they are published. Most importantly are the notifications of webinars being broadcast during the week.

Right now, making sure we are communicating properly is obviously incredibly important. If there’s any information you think is missing on HEE’s webpages, please let us know by submitting your question to the HEE Q&A helpdesk.