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Educating and Training the Future Health Professional Workforce for England

• report ( 759 Kb)
• executive summary (149 Kb)

Educating and training students to become nurses, midwives and other healthcare staff such as physiotherapists and radiographers is the core way of meeting demand in the longer term, and the one over which the NHS has the  closest control in relation to numbers and quality.

Our report concluded that achieving the planned expansion set out in the July 2000 NHS Plan depends on increased investment in teaching staff and accommodation at higher education institutions; achieving value for money in the provision of training courses; a reduction in student drop out rates and a larger number of good quality practice placements.

The Department of Health has taken a number of initiatives to address these problems, and we found many examples of good partnership working between the NHS and higher education institutions. Building on this, our report recommends:

• a more co-ordinated approach to workforce planning and development, taking closer account of health and social policy development;
• improved workforce planning skills of NHS personnel and common data and planning systems for workforce planning to achieve better estimates of future education and training needs;
• using a standard definition to monitor attrition;
• more sharing of good practice to reduce attrition;
• more consistent and collaborative approach to contracting based on longer term contracts with greater sharing of information on costs, consideration of generic pricing and standard price benchmarks, with greater focus on outcomes within the contracting process;
• involving higher education institutions at all levels of planning of health professional education and training, with shared responsibility for recruitment, selection and retention of students, and for identifying and managing practice placements; and
• work with regulatory bodies, the new Confederations, the Quality Assurance Agency and other stakeholders to implement new integrated arrangements for Quality Assurance.

A separate report on the position in Wales by the Auditor General for Wales, is available from http://www.agw.wales.gov.uk. A companion report on post-registration education and training was also published by the Audit Commission, available at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk

For further information contact Karen Taylor on 020 7798 7161 or email her through our enquiries desk, please mark your email for her attention.

Experts Consulted

• NHS Executive Regional Offices
• NHS Trusts
• Health Authorities
• Primary Care Groups
• Education Confederations (formerly Consortia)
• Higher Education Institutions
• United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting
• English National Board for Nursing and Midwifery
• Royal College of Nursing
• Royal College of Midwives
• Colleges of Radiographers
• Institute of Biomedical Scientists
• Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists
• Health Care National Training Organisation
• Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education
• Council of Deans
• Council of Deans
• Universities UK
• Council of Professions Supplementary to Medicine
• Higher Education Funding Council for England
• BUPA

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