Apprenticeship degrees are often underutilised, but they are a good way to upskill staff, while simultaneously looking after practice needs. However, given the NHS’ unique challenges, suitable upskilling opportunities are often hard to find. In this article, Stacey Hayes-Allen, Director of Corporate Partnerships at Arden University, discusses how the health and care sector can utilise apprenticeships to ease the sector’s widening skills gap.
80% of UK employers are struggling to find the talent they need.1 If we look back to 2010,2 only nine per cent of employers felt that filling job vacancies was challenging, meaning there has been a staggering increase of 71% of employers struggling in the intervening years.
The healthcare industry hasn't been immune to this — staff shortages in the sector are rife throughout the country. According to the British Medical Association (BMA): "The NHS has long carried a stubbornly high number of unfilled vacancies, a problem that far predates the pandemic."3
In fact, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan4 sets out the strategy and commitments to address existing and future workforce challenges and focuses on the role training, retention and reformation will play in solving the worker shortage. Apprenticeship ambitions feature heavily in the plan, including aims to triple apprenticeship training for all clinical staff by 2031/32.
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