Safety and quality of services: at the heart of all we do

Abstract

In February 2011, the Government published the Command Paper, Enabling Excellence: Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers and Social Care Workers, in part as a response to prevent poor quality of care ( Department of Health (DH), 2011a ). There is a recognition in the paper that ‘a more flexible system is needed to enable employers to assure themselves that prospective employees have met adequate standards of training and competence and to enable individual members of the public who seek care directly from unregulated, self-employed workers to assure themselves about their standards’. In February 2012, the Department of Health commissioned Skills for Health and Skills for Care to jointly convene a project to develop a code of conduct and minimum training standards with a view that these could be used by a body (or bodies) establishing a voluntary register or registers for healthcare support workers who reported to registered nurses and midwives in England, including assistant practitioners (APs) but not those working in support of other registered healthcare professionals, for example, allied health professionals. The project, which was completed in January 2013, has delivered a Code of Conduct, National Minimum Training Standards and core competences mapped to National Occupational Standards and QCF units, for health and adult social care workers in scope of the project. This paper describes the objectives and methodology which underpinned this work and the resultant outputs from the project which offer the potential to contribute to driving up standards of care now and in the future.