- Conference
- 2018 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 6 December 2017
- Decision
- Carried
Conference recognises the continued under-funding of education and training for NHS staff. The NHS Constitution states that employers have a responsibility for ensuring the ongoing learning needs of their workforce are met. Maintaining skills and supporting personal development is a vital part of supporting a quality service that fully meets the needs of patients and the public.
Despite this, central funding for continuing professional development provided by Health Education England, for instance, has been reduced in the last two years to zero. Arguably, the situation for staff other than nurses and allied health professionals is even worse in terms of lack of availability for course fees and study time. Despite some formal commitments in the devolved nations, the actuality is that staff find it very hard to access monies to support learning or have protected time for study, wherever they are employed and in whichever roles.
In UNISON we assert the value of education and learning, and see this as a lifelong right for all of our members. We seek to influence government and employers so that this right is endorsed and meaningfully supported within the NHS and associated employers. For this to happen there is a need for an adequate central resource to fund lifelong learning for all staff and an accompanying fair process for allocation of learning funds. The latter ought not favour one occupational group or grade over another.
Conference resolves that the Service Group Executive makes the case and lobbies employers and government for:
1)Provision of an adequate central resource to fund lifelong learning for all staff;
2)Development of a transparent process ensuring fair access to learning funds.