Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Health Education England

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Health Education England (HEE) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health. Their function is to provide national leadership and coordination for the education and training within the health and public health workforce within England. It has been operational since June 2012.

Contents

Functions

Key functions of HEE include:

  • providing leadership for the new education and training system.
  • ensuring that the workforce has the right skills, behaviours and training, and is available in the right numbers, to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and drive improvements
  • supporting healthcare providers and clinicians to take greater responsibility for planning and commissioning education and training through the development of Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs), which are statutory committees of HEE
  • ensuring that the shape and skills of the health and public health workforce evolve with demographic and technological change

    • History

    HEE was one of the new bodies set out in the NHS reforms of April 2012. Originally established as a Special Health Authority on 28 June 2012, it became a non-departmental public body (NDPB) on 1 April 2015 under the provisions of the Care Act 2014.

    Plans

    Its third national workforce plan, published in December 2015, provides for an increase of nearly 15% in nurses and doctors trained by 2020. This is planned to lead to an increase of 21,133 qualified adult nurses, 6039 hospital consultants and 5381 General Practitioners after allowing for retirement and staff turnover.

    Junior Doctors Contract

    In February 2016, the chief executive of HEE Ian Cumming sent a letter to all the chief executives of NHS Foundation trusts indicating that the organisation could cut funding for training posts in any trust which refused to impose the new juniors doctor contract. In January 2017, emails seen by the newspaper The Independent showed that HEE sent drafts of the letter to the Department of Health and that the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt was aware of the letter prior to publication.

    References

    Health Education England Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA