Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October has been Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Health Education England works towards delivering the Cancer Workforce Plan and the ambitions for cancer set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. This includes working towards ensuring we have enough staff with the right skills to deliver for patients. This is not just about increasing numbers, but supporting our staff to develop new skills and enabling them to work differently. HEE delivers a comprehensive programme of work across cancer and diagnostic professions which aim to improve the numbers of staff and skills of the workforce in this important area.

This programme of work includes:

• The development of training academies for imaging and endoscopy. This has resulted in the establishment of training academies across the country, including the south west Endoscopy Training Academy which is helping to improve the training of existing and new staff for this area.
• The Aspiring Cancer Career & Development Programme (ACCEND). This project is developing a nationally agreed, multi-level education framework and career pathway for those nursing and allied health professionals aspiring to work at all levels in specialist cancer roles/services.
• Upskilling staff in various areas. This includes training nurses to be Clinical Endoscopists and training radiographers in image interpretation and reporting, and developing new enhanced, advanced and consultant practice roles for allied health professionals.
• Promoting the development and use of apprenticeships. This includes developing the apprenticeship standards and providing grants to promote uptake in apprenticeships such as Diagnostic Radiographer, Therapeutic Radiographer, Mammography Associate, and Radiography Assistant Practitioner.
• Expanding our training throughput of healthcare scientists. This includes expanding training numbers for the Scientist Training programme (STP) and the Higher Specialist Scientist Training programme in medical physics, microbiology, genomic bioinformaticians, genomic counsellors, genomics/cancer genomics, genetics, and others. Also the developing and piloting of new STP in histopathology, and the development of a digital teaching and learning platform for pathology and healthcare Science.