Education development

We are the education commissioner for NHS Wales' non-medical workforce.

To ensure a constant supply of registered healthcare professionals for NHS Wales, we organise pre-registration education and training for healthcare students.

We also support post-registration education for registered healthcare professionals to ensure they are supported throughout their career.

Education commissioning

Workforce plans are used to establish how many training places are needed each year to meet the needs of people using non-medical healthcare services in Wales. This is presented via an education and training plan to Welsh Government each November. They approve final training numbers and a budget usually around February for September's admissions. 

It takes between two and seven years to train a healthcare professional to work in NHS Wales.

Education contracting

The budget is around £125 million. About half funds bursaries, salaries, expenses and allowances for students. The remaining budget funds the university courses. We negotiate a fee per student on each programme. Contract meetings are held throughout the year to look at how the programmes are performing.

The benefits of our commissioning and contract work include:

1. Controlled numbers going through professional training allows us to better match the number of health professional training to the number of available jobs in various health boards.
2. Post-registration education and training helps existing healthcare professionals to develop their careers.
3. Ensuring the budget is utilised efficiently. 

Strategic review of education

Undergraduate and postgraduate.

Below are some of the ways in which we're developing specific areas of education and training.