New strategy to develop the urgent and emergency care workforce in Kent, Surrey and Sussex

Health Education Kent Surrey and Sussex (HEKSS) is launching a new strategy to ensure that health and care professionals across the region are able to deliver the very best urgent and emergency care.

The HEKSS emergency care programme aims to educate, train and support a workforce that ensures people with urgent or emergency care needs can access the most appropriate service at the right time in the right place. It is part of the HEKSS five-year skills development strategy.

The demand for emergency care is increasing but a high proportion of patients that arrive at A&E could be better supported by alternative services and pathways before they arrive.

The new approach and priorities for training and education for urgent and emergency care were developed by members of the Emergency Care Programme Board, comprising senior clinicians and service leaders from across the region.

Regional focus aligned with national initiatives

The strategy has been developed so that it is fully aligned with national developments and policy initiatives for urgent and emergency care, including the Urgent and Emergency Care Review, being led by Sir Bruce Keogh on behalf of NHS England, the Health Education England (HEE) mandate and the work of the HEE Emergency Medicine Workforce Implementation Group (EMWIG) to address historic shortages in the number of emergency medicine doctors.

Strategic priorities

The strategy sets out a number of priorities for the coming year, including:

• Ensuring workforce planning, education, training and development align to current and new service models, for example urgent care networks and integrated care.
• Developing core skills across professions and supporting greater multi-disciplinary working, decision making and risk assessment.
• Working with education providers and other partners to enhance urgent and emergency care curricula.
• Retaining the urgent and emergency care workforce through development and support.

The work will particularly focus on multi-disciplinary and collaborative working to support a whole-systems approach.

Work programmes currently under consideration include exploring the potential for enhancing the skills and confidence of the community pharmacy workforce to prevent unnecessary admissions and the development of paramedics and new roles such as physician associates and advanced clinical practitioners so they are better able to provide a seamless integrated service for patients.

Building on a year of progress

The strategy builds on a number of important achievements for the HEKSS SDS emergency care programme during its first year.

Year-one priorities focused on tackling staff shortages in emergency departments across the region, specifically how to address poor recruitment into higher emergency medicine and supporting senior decision making by developing the current emergency department workforce.

A range of initiatives contributed to an increase in the number of higher emergency medicine training posts filled in the region, from 20% to 50% in 2014. HEKSS also led a programme that upskilled middle grade and SAS emergency medicine doctors to work more safely as senior decision makers on the night rota. This work is currently being evaluated by the University of Surrey with a further programme planned for 2015.

HEKSS also supported an innovative project by NHS South East Coast Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust to develop specialist practice training for clinical advisors working in the region’s NHS111 and 999 emergency operations centres.

HEKSS skills development strategy

Emergency care is one of the five key priorities identified in the HEKSS skills development strategy (SDS), developed by local healthcare providers, in partnership with HEKSS and other stakeholders.

The SDS priorities have been identified to meet the health needs of the local population, both now and in the future, and to deliver on national priorities and the HEE mandate. Each work stream has chief executive-level sponsorship, clinical leadership and a clear plan of action that is being implemented in order to transform health and healthcare for local people.