Health Service Focus

Support Workers: The case For ongoing Development And investment

Ian Wheeler, head of research, labour market intelligence and evaluation at Skills for Health, says the case for investing in the skills of the UK’s health support workers has never been stronger.

The UK’s health sector is dealing with two key forces. The first force is that of increased demand for healthcare. This has been brought about by rising expectations from the public about the quality and effectiveness of the services it receives. Innovations and advances in medicine are also contributing to increased demand as the range of treatable conditions increases. The growing population and the increases in the number of older people, who are more likely to have a range of long-term conditions that need to be treated, has also served to increase demand for care and will do so significantly in the future. 

Secondly, since the financial crises of 2008, there has been downward pressure on the resources available to the health sector (both public and private). The UK government has put in place austerity measures to reduce the deficit, the result of which have been restrictions on public resources available to health and social care. Additionally, high profile reviews of the health sector in the wake of what happened at Mid Staffordshire hospital have reinforced the need for high-quality safe care for patients. Being able to deliver more, and better, with less is therefore a key theme for the sector. 

Staffing is the single largest item on the health sector’s bill. One of the greatest conundrums for the sector is how people can be developed and utilised to help meet the demand for more and better with fewer resources at their disposal. How we can make better use of the pool of highly motivated and loyal ‘non-registered’ support workforce is a key feature of this debate. 

A significant proportion – almost 40% (798,600) – of the health sector’s 2.1 million strong workforce are in clinical or non-clinical roles that support these professionals: undertaking diagnosis for patients, helping to deliver the care believed to be necessary for patient wellbeing or ensuring that administrative tasks are completed. 

The support workforce is active in a range of occupations. Clinical support roles, such as healthcare assistants and assistant practitioners, as well as technical roles such as radiography assistants and those in the para sciences, often provide direct care to patients under the guidance and supervision of clinical staff. These roles make up around 17% of the total sector workforce. 

Recent analysis of support workers by Skills for Health points towards a number of important characteristics of the support workers that are relevant for those wishing to explore the development of the support workforce. It indicates that support workers are more likely to be women (women account for 82% of the support workforce compared to 78% for the whole health workforce) and more likely to be part-time, as 42% of support worker jobs are part-time, compared to 29% of jobs overall. 

Any learning and development activities will need to be mindful of the sector’s diverse workforce. But the evidence suggests that following through reviews of skills mixes, the sector could save significant amounts of money through the smarter utilisation of support workers and therefore registered workers. We estimate conservatively, albeit broadly, that for every 1% the sector shifts towards more effective use of support workers, £100m a year can be saved for the NHS. 

The effective use of support workers can help change the shape and quality of services. The analysis in our new paper draws from our recent experiences of introducing roles to a number of organisations throughout the UK. 

Velindre Cancer Care introduced a role that would increase the efficiency of appointments and flow of patients through the cancer services, thereby making savings and improvements to patient care. 

Wellbeing co-ordinators were introduced in East Cheshire who worked alongside the neighbourhood teams to accept referrals for patients who can receive additional support. This aided in reducing the amount of unplanned hospital visits and enhanced the well-being of patients. 

Nail carer roles were introduced in Birmingham after the NHS identified more than 4,000 patients (mainly elderly) were attending its podiatry service simply needing their nails cut. Introducing the new support role for care that did not require the attention of a fully-qualified podiatrist provided a cost-effective alternative for routine nail care. 

The support worker workforce is a rich source of loyal and enthusiastic employees. Working with them to enhance their skills and the roles they have will lead to improvements in the quality of care and assist in improving efficiency.

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