As the strategic workforce body for NHS Wales, our mission is to shape a skilled, sustainable, and future-ready healthcare workforce that delivers improved care and better population health outcomes. Through commissioning and delivering education and training, we support thousands of healthcare professionals across Wales -whether they are starting their careers or already working within NHS Wales.
We’re transforming how healthcare professionals in Wales are educated and trained. Over the past five years, we’ve expanded the training pipeline, helping to deliver record numbers of new staff into the NHS. Our contracts with education providers now prioritise greater access, inter-professional learning, Welsh language inclusion, and compassionate leadership.
We’ve also modernised our approach to education and training with the introduction of new ways of educating and training people. An example of this are our Primary and Community Care Academies which focus on the supporting people working in primary and community services. We have also developed an Endoscopy Training Academy which is helping to accelerate the number of trained endoscopists in Wales with a plan to extend the Academy across Wales. Our ambition is to build a Clinical Skills Academy so that we are using this approach to provide education and training in other key clinical skills areas. We have also built Y Ty Dysgu as our learning management system for Wales which provides a modern, accessible way of accessing education and training. Through our partnership with NHS employers and with Medr we also offer practical work-based learning and apprenticeships routes into healthcare careers.
To keep pace with change, over the next two years we’re developing, with partners, an Education Strategy – a first for Wales. It will help to define our approach to ensuring that we have a skilled and trained workforce able to address challenges such as those associated with an ageing population and the rapid technological innovations we are in the midst of. It will help us respond to generational shifts that are impacting on how people engage with education and training. The strategy will shape the long-term vision for educating and training the healthcare workforce in Wales, guiding our commissioning decisions, driving system-wide transformation and supporting our response to national priorities.
The strategy will focus on a number of key areas:
We will begin by assessing the current landscape of healthcare education in Wales. This includes:
We’re inviting stakeholders to contribute to the strategy development process by submitting evidence and sharing insights. Further details will be available shortly.
We’ll be hosting a range of events and engagement opportunities across Wales to involve you in shaping the future of healthcare education. More details will be published here later in the spring.
Your voice matters. Whether you're a student, educator, employer, healthcare professional, education provider or one of our key partners, your insights will help us create a bold, forward-thinking education strategy that meets the needs of NHS Wales now and into the future.
For further information, please contact: 📧 HEIW.Educationstrategy@wales.nhs.uk