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NHS 111 workforce
As part of the Integrated Urgent & Emergency Care Review, the NHS 111 Integrated Urgent Care Workforce Development Programme aimed to ensure better outcomes for patients accessing NHS 111 services by delivering a workforce with the right skills, behaviours and career and development opportunities needed to achieve this.
As recognised by the Urgent & Emergency Care Review, healthcare is expected to be increasingly provided closer to home, for example, through self-care, primary care, and NHS 111 telephone based clinical contact. The NHS 111 workforce gives the public easier access to urgent healthcare, and has had a significant effect on the way the NHS delivers that care.
The programme looked at bringing about a consistent approach to triage and/or onward referral. Focusing on registered and non-registered staff within the integrated urgent care services workforce, the project sought to:
- define core competencies, the scope of practice of registered and non-registered staff and how their on-going development will be supported
- identify a ‘core skill set’ common to registered and non-registered staff and opportunities for skill sharing
- define roles and associated competencies and identify the ideal composition and design of the workforce that will lead to the provision of high quality services and a 'learning organisation' in which staff can have a clear and structured career pathway appropriate to the needs of both the workforce and the patients that it serves.
The outputs will help teams to transform their workforce and enable a high quality, pro-learning culture within integrated urgent care services, and improve quality and effectiveness, increase staff retention and satisfaction, and drive innovation and development. Â
Read about the programme's work below:
To identify and evidence new ways of working and best practice within this work, 2 pilot phases were funded through the programme’s Workforce Investment Fund.
Swansea University produced a Phase 1 evaluation report looking at 19 pilot projects run by providers and commissioners during 2016.  Building upon these phase 1 pilots, the Phase 2 report looks into the learning and outcomes from the 14 pilots funded in 2017.
We supported 14 NHS 111 providers to recruit a dedicated apprenticeship lead and to develop and launch their own ‘Grow Your Own’ apprenticeship scheme as a long-term learning and development opportunity open to all staff using the new career framework as a workforce tool. The local schemes established Health Ambassadors, whose role include making contact with schools, colleges and careers fairs to promote NHS 111 as a Career of Choice. The schemes will also research wider participation strategies to give young and/or unemployed people, and diverse groups, an equal chance to see what working in NHS 111 is like.
We have developed a range of guidance and signposting documents. These are the result of extensive research, engagement, piloting and testing activities with key stakeholders. Together they constitute the Integrated Urgent Care/NHS 111 Workforce Blueprint, which is referenced in the National Service Specification for Integrated Urgent Care Services. Â Career of Choice case studies and other materials are available on the Health Careers website.
Evaluation reports
Read the evaluation reports for phase 1 and 2
Read the evaluation reports for phase 1 and 2