Key Messages and links to 18 February 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 messages from Dr Navina Evans, Chief Executive, HEE:

Why is global learning so vital

Never has the need for us to recognise and promote ‘global learning’ been starker as we emerge from the single biggest global health crisis that all of us have faced in our lifetimes.  At HEE, as the largest education, training and workforce planning organisation for healthcare in the world, we are in a particular position of influence and our people have unique experience in building and developing the right workforce.

Evidence demonstrates that when a healthcare worker moves into another care system, wherever in the world that is, they learn. Not only do they learn, but they develop skills which are hugely important in the NHS – things like resourcefulness, intercultural skills, resilience and team building. Visit the HEE website to read Navina’s blog in full.

Apprenticeships offer routes into more than 350 NHS careers

Our apprentices make a huge contribution to the delivery of essential services across the NHS in front line clinical and non-clinical roles. Health apprenticeships are continually expanding across all professions at all levels, and include areas such as nursing, advanced clinical practice, senior healthcare support, medical engineering, pharmacy and business administration to name a few.

More than 24,500 apprentices started training in 178 different apprenticeship standards across the NHS, in 2020/21 – a rise of 20% since 2019/20 and the largest ever number per year. 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.

Previous guidance from the NHS regarding deployment of NHS staff from 1 April 2022 has now been paused, as explained in a letter issued from the NHS.

To see the full HEE letter, dated 2 February 2022, please visit the HEE website.

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

Multi-professional

Advancing Practice stakeholder engagement

HEE is seeking to engage stakeholders on The Centre for Advancing Practice’s approach to multi-professional advanced practice credentials. This is ahead of the Centre’s full credential approval and assurance process being launched in 2022. The exercise runs to 28 February 2022. You can read a briefing document that explains the Centre’s approach, as well as accessing an online platform for providing feedback.

Medical

New report published – The F3 phenomenon: exploring a new norm and its implications

Over recent years we have seen an increase in the number of junior doctors choosing to take a break from training following completion of the Foundation Programme. This is often to work in a non-training post and the vast majority have returned to training at a later date. As this new report identifies, there are numerous factors in why doctors choose to take this break, and the reasons are shaped by the interaction between different personal and professional circumstances.

This programme of work, run jointly with the Royal College of Physicians, was commissioned to build our understanding of what has been referred to as “the F3 phenomenon”, and what it means for individual doctors and for postgraduate training. This report confirms what we have observed: taking a break from training post foundation is becoming increasingly common. The increased understanding the report brings will help the HEE Medical Education Reform Programme to ensure doctors are adequately supported in their careers and attracted into training programmes through our work to individualise training and to increase training flexibility. Read the full report here.

Mental health

Virtual Community of Practice of current and aspiring Advanced Practitioners in mental health

Advanced Practitioners in mental health work within a multi-disciplinary team to take a holistic approach to a patient’s care. In 2020 HEE launched its Multi-professional Advanced Practice Mental Health curriculum and capabilities framework and several early adopter sites are now delivering its content.

An Advanced Community of Practice in Mental Health has now been launched. The free to join facility, funded by HEE’s Centre of Advancing Practice is a place where, aspiring, trainee and qualified Advanced Practitioners in mental health can go to get advice, peer support and to share best practice and will offer members the opportunity to influence the development of advanced practice roles. Four virtual events are planned alongside the 24/7 community platform. The Community of Practice is currently in pilot form, for more information, to register for the events and to become a member visit the community of practice website.

Pharmacy

Funded places available before March 2022: Independent Prescriber Training

As part of emerging NHS Pharmacy Integration Programme education and training development offers, funded places are available for Independent Prescribing before March 2022.

This is an initial offer for pharmacists who are already in a position to apply and meet the eligibility criteria, and meets the requirement to progress this training as early as possible for community pharmacists and employers who have signalled they are ready to proceed.

For those pharmacists who are not in a position to apply for this offer, we would encourage you to prepare to apply for the main round of funded Independent Prescriber training that will be available from Autumn 2022. Find out more about this offer and eligibility criteria. 

Summer 2023 trainee foundation trainees

A reminder that employer applications are now being invited for the next round of the National Foundation Trainee Pharmacist Recruitment Scheme via Oriel.

Recruitment will take place in September-October 2022 for trainees beginning their Foundation training in Summer 2023. The deadline for employers to register to recruit via the National Recruitment Scheme and submit programme information for the 2023-24 cohort is Tuesday 1 March 2022. More information here

Workforce and education initiatives

HEE publishes roadmap into use of AI in the NHS
We have published the first roadmap to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the NHS looking at its workforce impact.

The report aims to understand the use of AI and data-driven technologies that currently exist in the healthcare system, the uptake of these new technologies and the impact on the workforce. This specifically looks at how long AI projects will take to implement, how the different types of technology are distributed throughout the health service, what clinical areas are using AI and which parts of the workforce use AI the most. Find out more on the HEE website.

Refugee and asylum seeker healthcare professionals’ experiences of working in the NHS

A new research project aims to investigate the challenges which refugees and asylum seeker healthcare professionals (RASHPs) face when entering and working in the NHS. HEE is inviting any health professional in the UK who is currently, or has previously, held refugee and asylum seeker status to complete a short survey on their NHS transition or working experiences. The survey can be found here and closes on 28 February 2022.

Healthcare Science Week 14 to 20 March 2022

Healthcare Science Week is an annual week of celebration and awareness-raising for the many careers in healthcare science and gives us the opportunity to promote the amazing work of healthcare science professionals and highlight the difference they make to patients’ lives. Healthcare Science Week will take place 14 to 20 March 2022.

You can help us celebrate HCS Week by joining the conversation throughout the week on social media, using the hashtag #HCSWeek2022 and following us @NSHCS – please retweet and like our posts throughout the week. If you know anyone who works in a healthcare science profession, either personally or professionally, then celebrate their work with a social media message post of your own. Please remember to include the hashtag #HCSWeek2022.

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.