The Project Plan: Developing the Health and Social Care (Generic) Support Worker Role

The Main Tasks

There are 4 tasks that we have identified as the most important to develop the Health and Social Care Support Worker role:

1. Decide what sorts of things will be done by Health and Social Care Support Workers.

2. Develop an accredited training program for Health and Social Care Support Workers so that they can carry their role to a very high standard.

3. Employ a small group of Health and Social Care Support Workers to make sure that the care delivered is of a very high standard and that this care contributes to better health and well-being and increased levels of independence for service-users. This is called a pilot project.

4. Roll out the Health and Social Care Support Worker model more widely to other services, for example Extra Care Housing, learning disability services, physical disability services, people with long-term health problems and palliative care.

What have we done so far?

The very beginning of this project was in December 2005 when the Health Social Care and Well-Being Team submitted the project bid to the Welsh Assembly Government Joint Working Grant Fund.

Following the successful submission of the project bid a project manager was recruited who started work in October 2006.

This is the work that has taken place to date:

1. A Project Team has been formed with representatives from North Wales NHS Trust, Denbighshire Social Services, and from the private sector and the voluntary sector. Download project structure.

2. Working groups of the project team have been developed and they each work to a detailed action plan covering a specific area of the project.

3. Background research has been undertaken, with particularly interest in similar projects.

4. An information day/launch was held.

5. Six support workers who already have an NVQ level 2 or 3 were recruited onto an 11 week learning opportunity consisting of experiential placements and training days. We have evaluated the learning opportunity, written an evaluation report (a copy of which is available upon request) and made recommendations around the training requirements of a Health and Social Care Support Worker.

6. A bespoke training programme for the first group of Health and Social Care Support Workers has been developed which has been implemented by a training coordinator employed in this role through project funds.

7. The role is being tried out in the Intermediate Care Response Service.

8. The first 8 Health and Social Care Support Workers have completed their training which consisted of a Technical Certificate in Health and Social Care, additional learning support packages and an NVQ in Health and Social Care at level 3.

What are we doing right now?

We are in the process of evaluating the service provided by the first group of Health and Social Care Support Workers.

The project team will share the learning that has taken place so far with commissioners of services and discuss the development of the next group of Health and Social Care Support Workers. A copy of the most recent interim report submitted to the WAG is available upon request.

The project team is talking to national sector skills councils (Skills for Health and the Care Council for Wales) about national approaches to the development of training for this role.