02.05.14
All NHS staff to receive specialist dementia training
All NHS staff will be able to receive specialist dementia training by 2018, a new government mandate has revealed.
After the success of delivering Tier 1 dementia training to more than 100,000 NHS staff, the government has called on Health Education England (HEE) to roll out the programme so every NHS staff member is dementia trained in four years.
Health minister Dr Dan Poulter said: “The priority is to train and retain a healthcare workforce equipped with the skills to deliver much more proactive care and support for patients in the community, and with the right skills to support people with long-term medical conditions to live with dignity in their own homes.”
Additionally, the new mandate requires HEE to provide leadership through Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs) in the development of training programmes setting out the required training needs to support staff to diagnose, where clinically possible, early symptoms of dementia.
It should also work with bodies that set curricula to seek to ensure that all undergraduate courses include training in dementia by September 2015. In conjunction with DH, HEE will also work with education providers and regulators to ensure that newly qualified staff who look after patients with dementia receive Tier 1 dementia training.
Building on the publication of the first mandate to Health Education England (HEE) in May 2013, this refreshed mandate reflects the updated strategic objectives of the government in the areas of workforce planning, health education, training and development for which HEE and the LETBS have responsibility.
Ian Cumming, chief executive of HEE, said: “We understand that it is crucial staff have the right skills but also the right values to work in the NHS, which is why our Values Based Recruitment project is a core part of our work.
“We are currently developing an online framework to enable organisations to access evidence on values based recruitment. HEE is also ensuring that all NHS funded training posts will incorporate a values test by March 2015.”
The mandate also recognises the successes HEE has already achieved since the first Mandate was published last May: pre-nursing experience pilots successfully launched and now in phase two; 500 new nurse trainees commissioned, Emergency Medicine report published; first national consultation on NHS bands 1-4 workforce strategy launched; HEE Workforce plan published; and the Care Certificate being piloted.
Cumming added: “HEE exists for one reason: to improve the quality of care delivered to patients. This new mandate again recognises HEE’s critical role in tackling some of the current challenges for the wider NHS and ensuring that our workforce has the right skills, values and behaviours, in the right numbers, at the right time and in the right place.”
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