National Workforce Programme
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Pages | 3-7 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200300012 |
| Author | Roslyn Hope,John Allcock |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
National Workforce
Programme
Roslyn Hope
Director
NIMHE National Workforce Programme
John Allcock
Deputy Director
NIMHE National Workforce Programme
Framework feature
The purpose of this article is to describe the role of
the National Institute for Mental Health (England)
(NIMHE) in the context of its national workforce
programme around recruitment and retention,
education and training, skill mix, and workforce
design and development.
Background
The genesis of the work of the national workforce
programme lies in the National Service Framework for
Mental Health (NSF) where, perhaps for the very first
time in a government policy statement, the need for a
series of underpinning programmes was articulated as
being necessary for successful implementation
(Department of Health, 1999). A key part of these
programmes was workforce planning, education and
training with the aim of enabling mental health
services to ensure that their workforce is sufficient and
skilled, well led and supported, to deliver high quality
mental health care, including secure mental health
care.
The Workforce Action Team
A Workforce Action Team, set up by ministers to
develop and drive forward the underpinning
programme, was charged with producing an interim
report by March 2000. In tackling this immense and
difficult task, the Workforce Action Team
concentrated on 10 key areas:
■improving the recruitment and retention of staff
in mental health and social services
■developing a functional map as the first step to
producing an agreed set of national occupational
standards for all staff working in mental health
services across all ages
■determining a single agreed set of the
knowledge, skills and attitudes required by the
mental health practitioner workforce to deliver
each of the NSF standards
■to consider the skill mix solutions required to
provide an adequate workforce
■recruiting more professionally non-affiliated
people into the workforce
■the development of a range of models for
assessing the potential numbers and mix of staff
required to deliver the NSF (and NHS Plan) at
a national level
■addressing the primary mental health care
workforce issues
■mapping all current education and training
required to deliver the NSF (and NHS Plan)
■engaging with the professional and regulatory
bodies to discuss the outcome of the education
and training mapping exercise
■tackling the stigma attached to working in
mental health services.
The Workforce Action Team recognised they would
not be able to complete this agenda in such a short
time scale but they aimed to produce some specific
pieces of work and guidance and set in train other
developments which would bear fruit further down
stream. This proved to be the case.
The interim report of the Workforce Action Team
was delayed until September 2000 because of the
The Mental Health Review Volume 8 Issue 2 June 2003 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2003 3
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