Cavendish Review

HEE should develop a “Certificate of Fundamental Care”, in conjunction with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), employers, and sector skills bodies. This should be written in language which is meaningful to the public, link to the framework of National Occupational Standards, and build on work done by Skills for Health and Skills for Care on minimum training standards.

NHS Employers, HEE and Skills for Care should work with employers to set out a robust career development framework for health and social care support staff, linked to the simplified job roles and core competences. Getting the Best out of People: Leadership, Supervision and Support

Employers should allow HCAs to use the title “Nursing Assistant” on completion of the “Certificate of Fundamental Care”, where appropriate.

Regulators, employers and commissioners in health and social care should define a single common dataset for their purposes, and commit to using it, to relieve the pressure on first line managers and other staff.

Trusts should empower Directors of Nursing to take greater Board level responsibility for the recruitment, training and management of HCAs, from day one.

The Secretary of State for Health should commission the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care for advice on how employers can be more effective in managing the dismissal of unsatisfactory staff, the legal framework around this, and the relationship with referrals to professional regulators.

Skills for Health should refine its proposed code of conduct for staff, and the Department of Health must review the progress of the social care compact: and substitute a formal code of conduct for employers if a majority have not acted upon it by June 2014. Time to Care

The Department of Health should explore with the social care sector how to move to commissioning based on outcomes; and aim to eliminate commissioning based on activity by 2017.

NHS England should include the perspective of HCAs and support workers in its review of the impact of 12-hour shifts on patients and staff.

Statutory guidance should require councils to include payment of travel time as a contract condition for homecare providers.

A “Higher Certificate of Fundamental Care” should also be developed, linked to more advanced competences to be developed and agreed by employers. The Department of Health should hold HEE and Skills for Care to account for ensuring that there is step-change in the involvement of best employers.

The Care Quality Commission should require healthcare assistants in health and support workers in social care to have completed the “Certificate of Fundamental Care” before they can work unsupervised.

The NMC should recommend how best to draw elements of the practical nursing degree curriculum into the Certificate; HEE, LETBs and employers should seek to have nursing students and HCAs completing the Certificate together.

HEE, with Skills for Health and Skills for Care, should develop proposals for a rigorous system of quality assurance for training, which links funding to outcomes, so that money is not wasted on ineffective courses.

Employers should be supported to test values, attitudes and aptitude for caring at recruitment stage. NHS Employers, HEE and the National Skills Academy for social care should report on progress, best practice and further action on their recruitment tool by summer 2014. Making Caring a Career

HEE and the LETBs should develop new bridging programmes into pre-registration nursing and other health degrees from the support staff workforce in health and social care, working with Skills for Care, NMC and Skills for Health; and explore the Barchester proposal for a Higher Apprenticeship.

HEE and the LETBs should set out a clear implementation plan, with robust measures, to take forward the objective in the HEE mandate to widen participation in recruitment to NHS-funded courses: and develop innovative funding routes for non-traditional staff to progress.

The NMC should make caring experience a prerequisite to starting a nursing degree, and review the contribution of vocational experience towards degrees so that staff with strong caring experience can undertake ‘fast-track’ degrees. Skills for Care should work with Higher Education Institutions to look at how care experience can be recognised in enabling people to enter social work, therapy and advanced social care courses.