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The Calderdale Framework

14 May 2010

There is increasing acknowledgement that current Health and Social Care provision is unsustainable in light of changing demographic profile of the country along with impending financial constraints. We have worked with Escalate to develop New Ways of Working (NWW); part of Skills for Health funded project.

One of the project outcomes was to understand the educational requirement of a Level 4 worker.

In CHFT we have a successful history of competency based workforce development (The Calderdale Framework).

A key element of this was to get recognition for work based learning in conjunction with a flexible, credited, educational component for non traditional learners. This also needed to be service friendly.

Escalate have listened to employer needs and constraints and sought ways to meet these along with learners need both in flexibility of module design and delivery / assessment methods. APEL of work based learning to the tune of 50 credits has been a massive benefit and reduced duplication and Beaurocracy.

The outcomes far exceeded our expectation, we now have a way to develop our local workforce safely into new roles ,which will better meet patient need whilst providing learning opportunities to those who have traditionally been somewhat ignored.

This model is flexible enough to develop level 4 workers across not only disciplines, but organisations. Fantastic!

The return on investment is not yet clear, but is being evaluated; we intend to publish the outcome of the impact of these new roles at our earliest opportunity.

Jayne Duffy

Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation NHS Trust

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