Nurses and other health professionals in England and Wales have been asked to contribute to a review of statutory and mandatory training subjects for NHS staff.
The Core Skills Training Framework (CSTF), introduced by Skills for Health in 2013, is currently up for review and open to public consultation.
The CSTF aims to help ensure ‘consistency’ in the delivery of onboarding training and assist organisations in grounding staff with the ‘key fundamentals’ that underpin care delivery.
It is adopted by 85% of NHS organisations in England and universally across the seven local health boards and three NHS trusts in Wales.
Current CSTF subjects include fire safety, infection prevention and control, moving and handling, resuscitation, safeguarding adults, and preventing radicalisation.
The review, which is the first public consultation regarding the framework since the Covid-19 pandemic, includes the proposal to add the subjects of learning disability (Wales) and learning disability and autism (England).
All staff across the healthcare workforce are invited to contribute to the review of the CSTF ‘to ensure that it continues to be the recognised and trusted benchmark standard’, Skills for Health said.
As nurses and midwives account for roughly a quarter of the NHS workforce, it is important that the review captures their unique perspectives and insights, said Skills for Health head of consultancy and research Jon Czul.
‘With a workforce well over one million, it is important that voices from across the workforce are represented and accounted for in the statutory and mandatory training subjects that the majority of NHS staff are required to undertake,’ he added.
‘Against the backdrop of significant transformational change and challenge, with competing demands and expectations placed on all of the NHS, this public consultation ensures that the key fundamentals of workforce training can be adapted to remain current and up to date.’
He added: ‘Workers on the frontline know best what patients need. They know from experience what statutory and mandatory training is required to deliver said care, which is why we are following a collaborative process which invites responses from across the workforce a whole.’
Liz Fenton, deputy chief nurse at NHS England, said: ‘This consultation is an important opportunity for members of the NHS workforce to have their say on statutory and mandatory training subjects.
‘We would urge nurses, midwives and nursing associates to take the time to participate, as the results will be vital in ensuring training is relevant, consistent and helps to maintain high standards of patient care.’
The framework has undergone a series of incremental updates over the last 10 years, with the most recent being in 2021.
‘The impact of the pandemic and priorities for recovery in the health sector means that organisations may not have revisited their statutory and mandatory training for some time and may be aligned to legacy versions of the framework,’ Skills for Health noted.
‘The review has been launched to ensure that the CSTF remains up to date with current legislation and is relevant and reflective of the skills and knowledge that the healthcare workforce requires in the current landscape,’ it added.
The consultation is open until 16 October. Once completed, Skills for Health said it will review all feedback and collate the results to share with its subject matter experts, with the results then used to inform amendments to the CSTF.
It is aiming to complete the review work by December.
