Healthcare support worker training

All healthcare assistants working with people with learning disabilities and autistic people should be provided with training, which should include specialist learning disability training as well as basic positive behaviour support (PBS). They should be required to complete successfully an examined course (with particular focus on behaviours that challenge) within six months of appointment, in addition to their...

The UK government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive should work with trusts and health boards to ensure that pandemic plans include practical steps to rapidly scale up hospital capacity to treat acutely unwell patients. This should include critical care services that can deliver multiple levels and types of organ support. It should also cover necessary...

Consideration should be given to enhancing the post of healthcare assistant by creating Band 4 associate practitioners in both hospital and community settings in order to increase the skills of those providing the majority of direct care, and also to provide a career pathway that will retain these staff. Such posts must be in addition to, and not...

Clinical supervision (where individuals’ practice with individual patients is discussed) should be mandatory for all ward staff, including healthcare assistants, and should occur monthly. Clinical supervisors should be trained in the conduct of sessions and the outcomes for continuing development should be recorded on personal files.

The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust should review the skills, knowledge, competencies and professional duties of care of all obstetric, paediatric, midwifery and neonatal nursing staff, and other staff caring for critically ill patients in anaesthetics and intensive and high dependency care, against all relevant guidance from professional and regulatory bodies. This review should be...