We hope this bulletin will be helpful and provides you with a summative overview of all information, documentation, and announcements made by HEE and our partners.

We will be updating this bulletin as further information, documentation, and announcements occur.

Key Messages and links to 5 April 2022

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

• Latest message from our Chief Executive
• COVID-19 latest updates

• Overview of HEE education and training news

Weekly messages from HEE

Read the recent message from Dr Navina Evans, Chief Executive, HEE:

Strength in tough times

The NHS and our people need to recover from the pandemic, deal with a huge backlog of care, and prepare for longer term challenges such as rising numbers of people with more than one condition, an ageing population, and mainstreaming new technology. That is why HEE has been commissioned to produce a new strategic planning framework to identify the drivers for workforce planning in 2037, including social care for the first time, and why we are building a new organisation with NHS England, NHS Improvement and NHS Digital to align workforce, service, finance, and technology. Read the full article on the HEE website.

 Recommendations for fairer tariff funding

Since April 2021, HEE has assumed greater responsibility for the development of the healthcare education and training placement tariffs. Supported by the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England/ Improvement, and other stakeholders’ we have developed recommendations to reform tariff funding across all education and training from September 2022. We are pleased to be at the helm of this work. There is much more to be done, but funding and plans for 22/23 provide a good foundation for us to be collectively ambitious for the future. Visit the HEE website to read Navina’s blog in full.

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.

Lateral flow tests for NHS patient facing staff

From 1 April 2022, NHS patient facing staff should continue to test twice weekly when asymptomatic. Lateral flow tests will continue to be available through the gov.uk portal for NHS staff working in a patient-facing role. Health and care students should ask their NHS employer, or main NHS contact, whether they need to take part in the NHS staff testing programme if they are working in a patient-facing environment – if the answer is yes, they will be able to access tests via gov.uk identifying as NHS staff.

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

Multi-professional

HEE Blended Learning Guidance launched

HEE has launched a comprehensive guide to blended learning for undergraduate education in healthcare across multiple professions.

The guidance includes contributions from across healthcare professions and follows the success of the HEE 2019/20 mandate to explore alternative routes into nursing to widen access and increase the nursing workforce in England. This new blended learning approach now means the NHS and partners can widen access and participation for training and education and promote diversity and inclusion in the wider healthcare workforce. To read the report click here. For more information about Blended Learning, email: blendedlearning@hee.nhs.uk.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion National Learner Assembly – Save the Date!

The second EDI National Learner Assembly will be held this year on 27 May 9.30am-4.30pm. The free to attend, full day online event will be chaired by learners, for learners, in collaboration with senior leaders at HEE to address concerns and share best practice to enable change. Keynote speakers include HEE Chief Executive Dr Navina Evans and North East Postgraduate Dean Prof. Namita Kumar.

Keep a look out as sign up instructions and full agenda will follow soon.

Medical

Launch of enhance: Enhancing Generalist Skills programme

HEE has recently launched the enhance: Enhancing Generalist Skills programme. This programme details how HEE will deliver the recommendations from the Future Doctor report and build on learning from the pandemic. The programme will help healthcare teams preserve and develop their generalist skills, supporting ‘whole person’ care for complex patients with multiple chronic conditions, and applying knowledge and learning to reduce health inequalities to address local health priorities. Our new programme handbook outlines the background to the work and expectations of participants, with a structure to guide learning activities that can meet the programme’s outcomes. Find out more about the programme and download our handbook.

Did you take part in the review of the Core Skills Training Framework (CSTF)?

HEE recently undertook a root and branch review of the CSTF which included the first ever online surveys asking NHS staff and People Professionals in England for their views on their statutory and mandatory training experience. We received over 2,000 responses.  The Core Skills Training Framework (CSTF) surveys have helped HEE to better understand users’ views on what’s working well with the framework and what could be improved and has been used to inform conversations and planning regarding reforms to statutory and mandatory training in England.

To read a summary report and slide pack of the findings and recommendations of the CSTF Review, see highlights from the surveys, understand the next steps for 2022/2023 and how to get involved in the next stage of this important work please visit the Enabling Staff Movement page of the website.

Doctors returning to training supported in escalating concerns and speaking up

HEE’s SuppoRTT team have developed a virtual reality (VR) resource for doctors returning to training, which uses a clinical scenario to explore the topic of Escalating Concerns and Speaking Up, skills that are increasingly recognised as contributing to the quality and safety of care for patients. Learners will explore techniques and develop skills in a safe, virtual environment. To learn more, watch this short promotional video.

Visit the SuppoRTT catalogue page in the NHS Learning Hub to access the resource.

Allied health professions

AHP Faculty Toolkit

An AHP Faculty Toolkit has been created as a resource, in response to feedback on key resources, to support those wanting to establish a Faculty or wanting to improve the effectiveness of an existing AHP Faculty. Read more on the HEE website.

Pharmacy

Pharmacy survey on genomics knowledge and training opportunities

We would like to invite all pharmacy staff to complete a short survey on your current practice and training requests in relation to genomics. The survey can be completed online at https://poll.hee.nhs.uk/s/GenomicsInPharmacy. The survey is open to all pharmacy staff, including pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and dispensers, assistants and support staff.

Workforce and education initiatives
New guidance for nursing on what good looks like

The What Good Looks Like (WGLL) framework sets out an ambitious, common vision across seven success measures for digital transformation. The nursing profession is in a unique place to support the realisation of this vision and lead the work collaboratively across the health and social care system.

This new guidance, developed with nurses across health and social care, supports nursing leaders in applying the WGLL principles as part of your ICS or organisation’s digital transformation journey. Further supporting resources, including how to put the guidance into practice, are available on the Digital Nursing Resources FutureNHS workspace.

Year of the Digital Profession / Digital and Data awards

NHS England and NHS improvement has launched the Year of the Digital Profession, an initiative committed to building a workforce of informatics experts in health and social care to meet the demands of the sector. A key moment for the year is the launch of the Digital and Data Awards which will recognise the achievements of individuals who work within a digital, data, technology or informatics role, either as their appointed role or as part of their clinical or professional role working in health and care.  The awards are open to clinicians and professionals. Celebrate your colleague’s work and enter here.

Consultation open for Biomedical Scientist (Degree) apprenticeship

Apprenticeship Standards describe the high-level knowledge, skills and behaviours required to carry out a defined occupation. The Biomedical Scientist Trailblazer Group have opened a consultation on the draft apprenticeship standard for the Level 6 Biomedical Scientist. The consultation will be available until 12pm on 13th April 2022. All feedback will be reviewed following the closing date and the Trailblazer will consider where amendments should be made to the draft standards. The Standards will then be submitted to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to seek approval. Click this link to access the consultation for the Biomedical Scientist apprenticeship standard.

The Future of Healthcare Work Experience: Discovery Report

HEE is committed to working with partners to improve the work experience and work-related learning offer to all our communities, for the benefit of individuals, health and care employers, patients and service users.

Following the release of The Future of Healthcare Work Experience: Discovery Report in 2021, we have now published a response to this document, which outlines in practical terms how we are working with partner organisations to take its recommendations forward. You can view The report and the response paper on the HEE website.

elearning for healthcare

Keep up to date with all the latest additions to the elfh platform here.

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.