Government to give dementia training to over 100,000 NHS staff within the next 12 months

The Government is to give over 100,000 NHS staff foundation level dementia training by March 2014.

The dementia training is part of a commitment by the Government to spend £5bn on a wide ranging series of measures to improve the training, values and education of all NHS staff over the next two years and beyond.

The measures have been published in the Government’s mandate to Health Education England, a new arms-length body set up to give NHS training and education unprecedented focus and importance. The £5bn will be accountable to ministers for delivering the goals set out in the mandate.

Health Minister, Dr Dan Poulter said: “The staff working in our NHS are our health service’s most precious resource, and we must do all we can to ensure that our staff have the right values, training, and skills to deliver the very highest quality of care for patients.

“Today’s mandate to Health Education England, backed by a £5bn budget will help our many dedicated frontline staff to further improve their ability to care for patients as well as enabling our NHS to train the next generation of doctors, nurses and healthcare assistants.

“As people are living longer with more complex medical and care needs, so must we ensure that our NHS workforce has the right skills and values to provide more care in the community for older patients as well as to give each and every child the very best start in life. Plans for the future training and recruitment of our NHS will lead to better working lives for staff and better care for patients.”

The commitments for Health Education England include better care for people with dementia and with complex needs plus a new five-year workforce plan to ensure the right levels of staffing and training across the health service workforce by Autumn 2013.

Health Education England also aims to bring in better recruitment and training which includes a plan to support the progression of healthcare assistants into nursing by Autumn 2014, and to establish minimum training standards for healthcare assistants by Spring 2014.

Additionally it plans to develop postgraduate training for nurses working with older people with complex care needs, for introduction in September 2014.

Professor Ian Cumming, chief executive of Health Education England, said: “Health Education England exists for one reason and one reason only: to improve the quality of care delivered to patients by ensuring that our workforce has the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours, and is available at the right time and in the right place.

“Our mandate from the Government sets out clearly the plans for education and training that will be the cornerstone for the delivery of high quality, effective, compassionate care, by recruiting for values and training for skills. Our £5bn budget will allow us to recruit, train and develop a workforce that will deliver improved care to patients.

“The mandate is set out under six broad themes - support for service priorities, NHS values and behaviours, excellent education, competent and capable staff, working in partnership and value for money. It covers the two years from April 2013 to March 2015 and will be reviewed in autumn 2013.”