New Types of Worker - NVQ Assessment, Competency and Verification
NToW Project NVQ Assessment, Competency and Verification
Context/Background
Following the success of the Skills for Care New Type of Worker (NToW) project focusing on Residential Care in Bath, Bristol and South Gloucestershire (see 'Completed Projects') we wanted to build on the work. In Bath we knew we needed to continue to skill up care staff so that they could offer "nursing type" as well as social care services to their residents. We also wanted to model the use of a nursing team to support the training and professional development of these workers in developing "joined-up services".
Objectives
The original pilot project skilled up care assistants through NVQ units and provided nurse assessor time from the Bath "Inreach Nursing" team for training, assessment, verification and monitoring post training practice competency. Care workers were undergoing NVQ level 2/3 training with bolt on clinical units. The objective of the training was be to support the care workers to develop "nursing type" skills, formally carried out by district nurses or health visitors.
What Happened
When the original NToW pilot came to a close and the InReach nursing team changed from being a "dedicated team" committed to specific care homes in Bath to being part of the new PCT community based district nursing teams, we had to think quickly about how their work to sustain the verification, assessment and competencies of the care workers could be done. The PCT changes meant the nurses had to work across care homes in the private and independent sector as well as the council so they no longer had as much time to support, assess and verify the new NVQ bolt on modules.
The Bath new Skills for Care Fund bid was made to see if we could continue to find ways of supporting the above CPD through this transition period. We were clear that because the new Skills for Care assistants helped older people to maintain their independence longer, and have less need for hospital and nursing care we needed to find a way to make sure the nursing team support was continued in some way.
To make it possible to carry on supporting care assistants in their NVQ work we worked with the registered care home managers and the PCT's new Community Matron for residential care to provide extra support and training to the care staff.
What has been achieved so far?
Whereas at first some care staff were concerned and worried about doing a different kind of training e.g. taking bloods and urine samples, they are now more confident and view themselves as being different a kind of professional. In fact they feel themselves to be valued differently and for example instead of seeing themselves as, "just working in a care home", staff are now talking about how they are able to prevent people going into hospital care, or making it possible for people to come out of hospital sooner because of the care they are now able to give.
From the nursing perspective it's also been interesting. Drawing together nursing and social care staff was at first quite challenging. Care staff didn't quite know why the nurses were in the care homes and some of them were concerned about that; the nurses themselves were sometimes frustrated because care staff, in their view, wouldn't pay enough attention to them.
The work to challenge these kinds of unhelpful ideas is of course still a "work in progress". We have helped the registered care home managers and the nursing team manager to work through some of the challenges and so far it has worked very well. The care home staff now regard themselves as being a very different "kind of animal" and the nurses understand the work of care assistants far better than they did previously. Most important though is the fact that residents spend less time in hospital and sometimes never have to be admitted at all because of the new skills their care staff have.
Contact Details
David Smallacombe
07860 439809
david@phoenixresolutions.co.uk
