HEIW's invited those with an interest in the future of the NHS to help shape the very first NHS Wales Education Strategy.
Individuals and organisations from across Wales and beyond were asked to share their experiences, ideas, challenges and innovations to help build a dynamic and future-proof education strategy and ensure that the NHS workforce of the future are equipped with the right skills to deliver high-quality care and treatment for patients.
Our response
Our response focused on the child health workforce, demands of future generations and opportunities to advance best practice. Specifically, we raised the following:
- The current state of child health in Wales and the resulting pressures on child health services, with workforce numbers insufficient to match the growing demand or to meet the increased complexity of children’s health needs. The lack of investment in the child health workforce can be linked with policy agendas and reforms not adequately addressed the needs of children within all-age policy documents.
- Supporting Professional Activities (SPA) time is currently under threat with the latest ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ data on advertised paediatric consultant posts from Advisory Appointments Committee activity showing an alarming decrease in average SPA time in paediatrics consultant job plans since the end of the pandemic.
- HEIW needs to consider how best to support not only the digital literacy of the NHS workforce but also consider how AI plays a role within health education. ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ recently published guide to paediatrics trainees on the Responsible use of artificial intelligence in ePortfolio entries which explains how paediatric trainees and trainers can use AI ethically, safely and effectively in their ePortfolio practice.
Our recommendations
An NHS Wales Education Strategy must:
- Respond to current demands and future projections of populational health.
- Encourage a move towards a capability-based model of training with increased flexibility, broadening knowledge and including preventive healthcare as part of training. Our Progress+ Curriculum is an example of this.
- Safeguard Supporting Professional Activities (SPA) and ensure training responsibilities are valued by employers alongside clinical activities.
- Provide generalist and specialist IT literacy education to all professions and grades in the NHS to ensure the workforce is capable of utilising digital and AI advancements.
- Adopt a populational approach that allocates appropriate resources to the child health workforce and embeds prevention and early intervention.
Get involved
We respond to a wide range of consultations to ensure that the College’s position, and ultimately children’s health, is represented. Members can get involved in current consultations by contacting us at: enquiries-wales@rcpch.ac.uk.