Learning Environments and Placements
We’ve also attended two online workshops run by NHSE National team to develop a maturity matrix for organisations to complete to assist with implementing the Educator Workforce Strategy. Similar workshops for individual placement providers have also been running alongside these, and the details have been cascaded across the system. We would like to encourage as many as possible to attend these, as it is a real opportunity for Trusts and other organisations to have your say in the development of the matrix.
The team continues to welcome students to our leadership placement, with 17 joining us between October and December from physiotherapy, occupational therapy and diagnostic radiography. They are a fantastic asset to our team, bringing their own lived experiences and representing the learner voice throughout the work of the team and beyond. We are also continuing to support other teams in developing their placement offer within the ICB and would like to extend that offer to any other teams who would also like to support the development of our future workforce.
Finally, NHS England have also created a new data set demonstrating the placement expansion targets for South Yorkshire that would need to be met in order to grow and develop the future workforce, ensuring that there are enough nurses, midwives and allied health professionals to meet the needs of our population now and in the future. These will be shared with colleagues at the next Education and Training delivery group at the beginning of January.
Apprenticeships and New roles
Following new guidance issued by NHS Employers on Apprenticeship pay in August, the Trusts have been working to ensure their compliance. For most organisations this is taking a while to work through as a number of individuals are affected.
Nationally, there is increasing concern about the proposal by Skills England to de-fund Level 7 Apprenticeships. This would have significant impact on programmes crucial to workforce development including ACP, Senior Leader, Clinical Associate Psychologist, Digital Technologist, Solicitor and Research Scientist. Evidence has been submitted by NHS England and the ICB to the Skills England call for evidence. `In the last year alone, our SY data (including YAS and SWYT) show that trusts have committed to more than £4 million in Level 7 spending.
We are working with other ICB Apprenticeship Leads in Y&H to develop areas of focus from the Regional Apprenticeships and Widening Participation Framework released in November. This will include scoping of programmes including work experience type activity.
We are continuing to support Levy Transfers in South Yorkshire, during October and November we have brokered levy sharing for 6 non-levy paying social care organisations to the value of £67,500 and continue to be an active member in the ENABLE group.
The team, on behalf of the NHS Apprenticeship Leads are in the throes of developing another virtual Discovery session for National Apprenticeship Week. This year we have speakers undertaking Customer Service, Project Management, Biomedical Scientist and Occupational Therapist apprenticeships.
SY Careers (NHS Health and Care)
The South Yorkshire Careers NHS, Health and Care website launch is now complete. Analytics for the first quarter have recorded 620 active users, 4,066 visits to the site and 533 downloads of resources for teachers, career leaders and volunteers to support careers promotion work in schools and communities.
We are working with the Careers Enterprise Company (CEC) as part of the National NHS Advisory Group programmes. Within this our "Jobs for Everyone” early primary school resources have been accepted onto the Start Small Dream Big platform and we are coordinating a promotional campaign with the CEC national team to secure wide reach and recognition for our resource. We are also working on local projects to help schools to understand, teach and promote health and care careers.
The SY Careers Group has been reinstated with a refreshed Terms of Reference. The group will collaborate to identify gaps, opportunities and to share best practice. We undertook a broad scoping exercise to identify widening participation activity across the four places which we will benchmark against the North East and Yorkshire Regional Apprenticeships and Widening Participation Framework.
Changes to in-school and national careers provision is anticipated following release of the Skills England Report (Sept 2024): health and care is named as a sector of preference for pupil employment destinations; a Youth Guarantee extends careers support to 18-21-year-olds and EqualEx looks to formalise work experience for young people. These changes offer both advantages and challenges and we are collaborating with system partners to maximise opportunities to convert current school age pupils into our future workforce.
Employability
We have hosted SY regional meetings in support of both the NHS Universal Families work and T Levels this quarter. In early January the ICB Digital team is interviewing for a Digital T Level student to join the team, approximately one day per week for at least 45 days over the academic year 12 and 13. This is a great opportunity for the ICB to showcase the variety of digital careers and development opportunities available in our sector to a young person with this career in mind!
In terms of our support for Care Experienced young People into work (NHS Universal Families project), our figures for the last couple of months show that across the system partners we are managing to engage young people through open sessions and alongside our partner organisations like the King’s Trust. Over 150 young care leavers have attended place run careers events. Events run in Barnsley place resulted in 6 people recruited into jobs in Health and Social Care. The Barnsley Care Experienced Young People’s Christmas Dinner Party will be attended by one of the team this year too!
Upskilling / Workforce development
The ICB is continuing to support our Trusts and Primary Care providers where needed with their CPD requirements in collaboration with our education providers.
We have also asked our partners to highlight their top three risks and priorities for workforce development, and are in the process of collating the responses so that the system is better able to respond to any future funding offers that may become available, and also so that conversations with NHSE and education partners can be more focussed on the priorities of the ICS.