Education and Training Plan
The annual Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) Education and Training Plan details the education and training to be commissioned for the NHS Wales health professional workforce together with workforce planning information. Investing in education and training is key to a sustainable workforce pipeline in NHS Wales. It is a core contributor to ensuring our health partners have the capacity and capability to deliver high quality and safe patient, person centred care to people in Wales.
Education and Training Plan 2024-25
HEIW produced the Annual Education and Training Plan 2024-25 following engagement with stakeholders and submitted this to Welsh Government for Ministerial approval in July 2023 which you can see here. Over subsequent weeks and in view of financial challenges, several additional options were requested by Welsh Government up until January 2024 and the final decision was announced by the Minister for Health on 14 February 2024.
The Welsh Government announcement committed to maintain the investment in education and training at the 2023-24 level of c£283m. HEIW has undertaken extensive work to prioritise the original recommendations within the Education and Training Plan for 2024-25 to mitigate the impact of this and to continue to enhance education and training opportunities in many key professional areas.
This has meant a number of changes to the original recommendations produced in July 2023.
A number of important factors were considered when prioritising the recommendations for the 2024-25 Education and Training Plan including, responding to health service need and employment opportunities, system training capacity and honouring previous education and training plan commitments, to ensure existing students and trainees can continue through their education and training pathways. The impact of delays in the final decision on the plan has been managed through a risk-based approach to mitigate impact on recruitment to education programmes.
Numbers in the following programmes have been maintained at 2023-24 levels:
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Dental Core, Foundation and Specialty Training, Dental Therapy Training
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Pharmacy Foundation and Technician Training
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GP Training (target level 160)
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General Practice Nursing.
Several areas in health professional undergraduate education have the potential to see continued growth based on the level of students who have or are forecast to take up education in 2023-24.
There are new and additional education opportunities across professions including Novice Independent Prescribing for Pharmacists and Medical Foundation and Speciality Training posts.
In terms of the annual workforce development budget, there is an increase of £0.5m, to a total of £5.8m, enabling more people to be educated and trained in the following programmes:
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Healthcare Support Worker
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Post Registration Health Professional Education
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Prescribing and Independent Authorisation of Blood Transfusion (IABT)
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Genomics.
We will review the process for this year in conjunction with Welsh Government to ensure that stakeholders are engaged in all stages.
The details of the plan agreed with Welsh Government can be found below.
Supporting resource
HEIW has created an Education and Training Plan (ETP) supporting resource, designed to aid understanding of the annual ETP. The resource, which can be accessed below, includes information on areas of the ETP such as:
- what it is
- how and why it is produced
- its uses, benefits and risks.
More importantly, the resource will explain how the annual plan is a fundamental element in shaping the future healthcare workforce supply for NHS Wales. It is advised that this resource is read before, or alongside the ETP.
If you have any further queries about the ETP, please contact heiw.planning&performance@wales.nhs.uk.