Together with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and partners, Skills for Care has co-developed voluntary guiding principles to support person-centred, safe and effective delegation of healthcare activities to paid care workers and personal assistants.
 
Delegation to social care workers isn’t new and has been happening for several years, to enable people accessing care and support to have more choice and control, with an opportunity to have a better experience of care. The principles are designed to be adapted locally to complement existing best practice and local protocols. We’ve also created supporting resources, videos and sample policies.
 
Delegation and upskilling of social care workers is a positive step forward, however it’s important that delegation remains person-centred, rather than a one-size fits all approach, and with the right learning and development, support and supervision in place.
 
Find out more at www.skillsforcare.org.uk/DelegatedHealthcareActivity
 
Expression of Interest
Our next steps between now and January 2024 are to test how the principles and associated products work in practice, gathering feedback, local intelligence and best practice through an iterative approach to make continuous improvements.
We would like to work alongside up to 6 delegated healthcare initiatives across geographical areas and across a variety of service provision, for example where person-centred delegated healthcare activity is happening within mental health services, service for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people, dementia care or delegation to personal assistants. 
Selected areas will commit to:
  • Test the principles and the supporting resources (where relevant) in practice.
  • Provide feedback online and through short interviews involving people who draw on care and support, managers, care workers, healthcare professionals and leaders.
  • Attend a monthly virtual peer group between July and January (approx. duration of 1 hour)  to share learning and best practice, as well as challenges and solutions.
  • Contribution to a learning event.
  • Optional Participation in host visits from government ministers and/or senior DHSC leaders to support policy making.
  • Sharing learning and contribution to support the government wider reform evaluation.
Benefits include opportunities to:
  • Showcase best practice nationally via DHSC and Skills for Care and at sector events
  • Shape improvements to the guided principles 
  • Learn from others through peer support. 
Timescale
Indicative timescales:
  • Initial discussions and evaluation planning – July 2023
  • Intelligence and feedback gathering throughout July – December 2023
  • Short interviews by York Consulting- October-December 2023
  • Contribute to final report and next steps – January-March 2024
How decisions will be made and when?
Please use Survey Monkey to submit your expression of interest.  Final decisions will be made by the DHSC and Skills for Care project group based on suitability against the principles aims.
 
For questions or further information, contact innovation@skillsforcare.org.uk 

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* Lead Organisation/other Organisation

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* Lead Contact

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* Service Provision type e.g. mental health services, learning disability services, personal assistants, dementia care (not exhaustive).

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* Workforce structure/size of the service/geographical area spread

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* Tell us about your delegated healthcare work. What are the aims and intended outcomes and who’s involved? (max. 300 words)

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* How long has this work been established? What has been the activity to date? (max. 300 words)

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* Tell us about any plans you have to measure success and formally evaluate the impact/outcome of the work, including any plans for sustainability and/or scaling up of initiatives? (max 300 words)

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* Any further information to support the process

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* Date submitted

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* Person completing the Survey (if different to main contact)

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* Email address

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