UK health sector skills assessment 2011

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International

Increases in skills gaps, especially in leadership and change management, pose a growing threat to the health sector’s future effectiveness, warns a new report from Skills for Health in the UK.

The UK Sector Skills Assessment 2011 presents a wide-ranging review of the health sector’s skills and workforce needs against a backdrop of rapid organisational and technological change, financial constraint and rising demand for services caused by an ageing population and increases in longterm conditions.

It says that these trends will require unprecedented improvements in quality and productivity, and warns that failure to tackle growing management and leadership skills gaps will hamper the introduction of necessary workforce transformation measures.

Skills for Health head of research Ian Wheeler commented: “Skills gaps are always a cause for concern and are particularly worrying at a time when the sector is undergoing significant change.
“Management, teamworking and problem-solving skills in particular are set to become much more important as employers embark on large-scale workforce transformation.

Figures from the assessment show that 32% of employers in England report gaps in management and leadership skills, while in both England and Scotland gaps in ‘problem solving’ skills were reported by 44% and 47% of employers respectively. ‘Teamwork’ also featured highly with 40% of Scottish employers and 41% of English employers reporting this as a skills gap.

The assessment also highlights the importance of tackling literacy and numeracy skills gaps. In England, 20% of health sector employers reported skills gaps concerning literacy, while 15% reported skills gaps concerning numeracy.

The full report is available at: http://www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/planning-your-workforce-strategy/skills-labour-market-intelligence/Baseline-reports.aspx