Key Messages and links to 24 June 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.

Reset, recovery and reform

‘Throughout history, it has often taken a crisis to drive such rapid evolution’

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.

HEE recently published a series of short animations to help keep doctors in training up to date with training recovery and explain how we are getting training back on track, flexible training opportunities available, and wellbeing resources. To keep up to date with plans for medical training recovery, visit HEE COVID-19 webpages.

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

National Education and Training Survey is now live
HEE’s 2021 National Education and Training Survey (NETS) is now live, giving students from across the country the chance to provide feedback on their clinical placement experience.

NETS collects opinions from students about their time in clinical placements to capture information on their learning experiences, what they thought worked well and what they think could be improved.  First piloted in 2018 and run twice a year, the survey is the only one of its type to cover multiple professions and the survey results provide vital feedback used to improve the quality of clinical placements across England.

The survey will run until midnight on Friday  23 July 2021. To take part in the survey go to https://poll.hee.nhs.uk/s/netsjune21/

Medical

Medical trainees join senior leaders to discuss tackling health inequalities

HEE learners and doctors in training were given the opportunity to put questions to Chief Medical Officer for England, Dr Chris Whitty, and Director of Education and Quality and Medical Director at HEE, Professor Wendy Reid, at the National Trainee Engagement Forum (NTEF) Insight Event on 9 June, 2021.

Find out more on Dr Raees Lunat and Dr Vidushi Golash, NTEF co-chairs and clinical fellows to the Medical Director at HEE, as they reflect on the event here.

Nursing

Expansion of clinical placements gets £15m boost

We have pledged £15m to fund additional clinical placements across nursing, midwifery, allied health professionals (AHPs) and healthcare science, in 2021/22.

This funding will increase the number of placements offered to nursing, midwifery AHP, and healthcare students from September 2021, and will enable HEE to deliver the future health and care workforce in sufficient numbers and with the skills the NHS needs.

Education providers are anticipating a significant growth in student numbers this year across the healthcare professions. Applications in England have risen by 34% for nursing and 27% for AHPs and the expansion of clinical placements will enable providers to meet this demand.

Maternity

HEE adds new midwifery degree to blended learning programme

The introduction of a new blended learning degree in midwifery has moved a step closer as we announced four universities who will deliver the degree by March 2022.

The midwifery degree is the latest qualification to be included in HEE’s blended programme. It joins the nursing degree that was announced in July last year to help boost the nursing workforce and support the vision to open up the nursing profession to a much wider group of people. Students will emerge with a Bachelor’s degree in midwifery after 20 months to three years training depending on the chosen pathway.

Pharmacy

Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey (CPWS)

The deadline for the CPWS has been extended to Friday 25 June to ensure that we receive the maximum number of responses possible. This survey will help us to raise visibility of the community pharmacy workforce and help us to target education and training support to where it is most needed. Direct communications have been sent to pharmacy contractors to advise them of the extended deadline and encourage them to complete the survey. Please contact our research partners on CPWS2021-queries@manchester.ac.uk for more information.

Pharmacy Technicians – 10-year anniversary as a registered profession
Registration for pharmacy technicians with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) became mandatory in July 2011. In October 2020 there were 20,372 pharmacy technicians in England on the GPhC register (Source GPhC).

Thursday, 1 July 2021 marks 10 years of pharmacy technicians becoming a registered profession. We are working with key stakeholders to raise awareness on social media using #pharmtechreg10 and supporting the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) with their virtual event.

The Trainee Pharmacist Foundation Year Programme

We are running joint webinars with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the General Pharmaceutical Council to explore how the Initial Education and Training reform programme will be implemented in the 2021/2022 Foundation Training Year (the new name for the pre-registration training year).

Please save the date and join on Teams:

• Community pharmacy employers and leads, educators and training providers: Click here to join the meeting on Tuesday 29^th June 7pm-8pm.
• Primary care and NHS Trust employers and educators: Click here to join the meeting on Thursday 1^st July 4pm-5pm.

Contact the HEE National Pharmacy Team at traineepharmacist@hee.nhs.uk with any questions.

AHPs

AHP student practice-based learning programme webinar

Earlier this week, the AHP student practice-based learning programme held a webinar to celebrate 12 months of innovation and launched a new animation. The animation outlines what practice-based learning is and what are the benefits to student Allied Health Professional students? It describes how Health Education England is working across the sector to support and build practice-based learning opportunities to enhance student learning.

The webinar shared gold standard innovation in TECS, simulation, non-clinical examples of practice-based learning. It was held as a celebration and to say thank you to everyone for their willingness to adapt quickly to a changing world and embrace the opportunity to lead the way with innovative projects. Visit our practice-based learning resource page for more event recordings, slides, guides and videos here and view the animations here.

Workforce and education initiatives

New NHS training aims to address loneliness and social isolation

Staff across the NHS, care and voluntary sectors will have access to a range of interventions and information about how to refer or signpost people who may be at risk of loneliness and social isolation.

A new elearning resource has been developed in collaboration with Public Health England and the Campaign to End Loneliness. It provides information to help health and care learners to recognise people who may be at risk from loneliness and social isolation and understand the potential negative outcomes this may have on their health.

A week to champion genomics in healthcare

Join HEE’s Genomics Education Programme (GEP) on Monday 28th June 2021 as they launch their #GenomicsConversation week of action campaign. Aimed at the nursing, midwifery and health visiting community, the week is an opportunity for the programme to demonstrate how relevant genomics is in practice today.

Free online activities will be available throughout the week, tailored to reflect each day’s theme. This year the GEP are pleased to launch several new podcast interviews, related resources and blogs that will be published as part of our range of curated content. In partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement the GEP is also co-hosting the first of three educational webinars. A calendar of activities will shortly be available to download. With just over a week to go. follow the GEP on social media or check out their webpage for news and updates on the week.

Partnership offers free e-leaning resource for UK NHS organisations

HEE has boosted its elearning portfolio for the health and care workforce, by partnering with FutureLearn.com to provide short courses to the NHS for free.

The partnership means fees are waived for all NHS-authored courses on FutureLearn. HEE is the lead partner, though all NHS organisations in the UK have the option to create courses and then make these available via the FutureLearn platform.The new partnership consolidates several existing partnerships between different NHS organisations and FutureLearn, to provide a unified experience for learners and making it easier for health and care organisations to create courses.

The courses which are currently eligible as part of the partnership are available on the Learning Hub: https://learninghub.nhs.uk/catalogue/futurelearn

An introduction to the HEE Star: accelerating workforce redesign

Do you have a role or interest in health and care workforce redesign, transformation or planning? Have you heard about the HEE Star and want to know more?

We are hosting short, one-hour webinars to raise awareness and enhance understanding about the HEE Star – a proven methodology designed to tackle a broad range of health and care workforce challenges.

Whether you’re part of an ICS/STP or primary care network, in a CCG, CSU or Trust or an arms-length body, the HEE Star is applicable. The webinar will give you a general overview and understanding of the HEE Star methodology demonstrating how and where it can be effectively used, and highlighting the benefits to your organisation and workforce.

There are two dates available:

• 10-11am Tuesday 13 July 2021
• 10-11am Wednesday 22 September 2021

To book your place please complete this short registration form

Stroke training offers health professionals the support they need

HEE has launched its first multi-professional Stroke Training Guide in a bid to improve health and social care workers’ understanding and response to the condition.

A digitised version of the guide, the Stroke Toolkit, is now available. It offers consistent, credible, and helpful resources relating to stroke. This is underpinned by the Fundamentals of Acute Care and Treatment in Stroke (FACTS) elearning modules, which are linked to the Stroke Specific Education Framework (SSEF).

This has been launched alongside six rehabilitation videos, which cover possible cognitive and communication problems, functional independence, how a person’s mood may be affected, swallowing and appropriate positioning after stroke. Find out more on our Long Term Conditions programme page. 

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.