Staff focus updates - 13 September 2012

New policy, guidance and initiatives from across the UK which focus on staff issues and professional development. For more information about this theme see Quality and Safety e-Bulletin: staff focus.

Some of the resources linked to are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

DH: Government response to Health Select Committee inquiry into education, training and workforce planning. The Committee supports the changes being made to the education and training system, which were fully endorsed by the NHS Future Forum. "Since the Department of Health presented its evidence to the Committee, a great deal of progress has been made in establishing the new system of education and training."

Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS): Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Workforce Census – March 2012. This statistical publication presents an analysis of staff in post by occupational family, main location, gender, working pattern and age. It also gives details of staff turnover between April 2011 and March 2012, as well as summary information on vacancies.

DHSSPS: Health Minister announces outcome of review of HSC student bursaries. Health Minister Edwin Poots has announced changes to nursing and midwifery Bursaries following consultation. The changes aim to bring payments made to student nurses and midwives in line with other health and social care students from the 2012/13 year onwards.

Guardian: Survey reveals NHS staff fears over reforms. Key findings from a survey of NHS professionals in both clinical and management roles run by the Guardian’s healthcare network show that “many of those most directly affected by the government's radical restructuring of the NHS in England do not understand how it will be implemented and fear it will weaken vital parts of the service”. 605 members of the network responded to the survey.
Healthcare network members survey: what you say on NHS reforms.
Infographic. A breakdown of what members said about the reforms, outcomes to patients, and the impact of social care cuts.
Healthcare network members survey: what do you think about your job. The survey asked members about the highs and lows of their working lives.

Healthcare Conferences: Nursing Clinics 2012. Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive and General Secretary is delivering a closing address at this conference on 20 November 2012. His topic will be ‘Nurse clinics and developing nursing roles: national update and moving forward’. The conference is aimed at nurses running their own clinics and services in primary and secondary care across a variety of specialties.

Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW): Raising concerns about healthcare in Wales. HIW has a special role for people who are thinking about "blowing the whistle" about concerns they have about wrongdoing in healthcare in Wales. A new leaflet explains how healthcare workers can raise concerns with HIW about healthcare in Wales. It gives some background and sets out what HIW can, and cannot, do when receiving whistleblowing information.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES): Palliative care for pharmacy technicians. This interactive PDF aims to help pharmacy technicians develop their knowledge and skills in relation to patients with palliative care needs, and their carers and families. It is aimed primarily for pharmacy technicians working in community, hospital and primary care settings but may be useful to other healthcare professionals working with patients with palliative care needs.

NHS Employers: Pay Circular (AfC) 3/2012. This pay circular informs employers of changes to the NHS terms and conditions of service handbook, which has been updated to acknowledge the creation of the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups.

Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC): NMC and GMC release joint statement on professional values. This statement has been released in the context of the recent high profile examples of patients, particularly older people and those with learning disabilities being neglected.

Policy Exchange: Local pay, local growth: reforming pay setting in the public sector. "Rebalancing the pay and pensions of public sector workers so that they are in line with that of equivalent workers in the private sector would save the UK £6.3 billion a year in public spending. This money would be better spent on tackling local unemployment and could create at least 288,000 private sector jobs – or the equivalent salaries of 332,000 more nurses or 252,000 more teachers - in some of the areas of the country suffering most from the impact of the recession."

RCN: Local pay would damage NHS. The Royal College of Nursing has issued a robust defence of national pay systems, saying that a move to local pay would be damaging to the NHS. The comments were made in response to the publication of the Policy Exchange report, Local Pay, Local Growth.

RCN: Thousands of members unit against regional pay. Nearly 10,000 Royal College of Nursing members across the UK have written to their MPs telling them why regional pay in the NHS is wrong and asking them to raise the issue with the Secretary of State for Health.

RCN: The assistant practitioner role in children and young people’s services (PDF 738.4KB). This publication examines the background and development of the assistant practitioner role in children and young people’s services and looks at key policy issues as well as detailing recommendations for future development and implementation. The unique needs of children and young people are central throughout.

RCN: Travel health nursing: career and competence development (PDF 2.0MB). The guidance provides information on current guidelines and standards of care of travellers. It builds on the original 2007 publication ‘Competencies: An Integrated Career and Competency Framework for Nurses Working in Travel Health Medicine’ and defines the standards of care expected for a competent nurse, experienced/proficient nurse and a senior practitioner/expert nurse working in travel health nursing.

RCN: Core competences for imaging nursing (PDF 1.2MB). A lack of nationally agreed competences for imaging nurses has led to uncertainty in the expectations of imaging nurses and their managers. Core competences for imaging nursing, supported by Cook Medical, has been developed as a framework for imaging nurses in clinical practice. Six core competences, which cover all modalities across imaging nursing, have been identified: prepares the patient effectively for imaging procedures; supports the patient through imaging procedures; safely cares for the patient following imaging procedures; assists with imaging procedures; maintains a safe environment within the imaging department; and undertakes specific interventions within the imaging environment.

RCN: Regional pay is ‘a fool’s economy’. Twenty trusts in the south west of England have formed a cartel in an attempt to set pay regionally. The RCN has published this briefing showing the likely effects of this move towards regional pay.
The South West Pay Cartel – the health economy and workforce context (PDF 552KB).
RCN: Nurses leaders warn regional pay plan would harm care. The RCN has warned NHS leaders that proposals to scrap national pay and conditions deals would harm patient care. The union has written to senior managers at 20 trusts in south west England who are considering a regional approach, to try to save money.