Digital
Apprenticeship Toolkit for Employers
This toolkit aims to help NHS Employers identify suitable opportunities to recruit and upskill people through digital apprenticeships. It presents possible apprenticeship solutions to create the talent pipeline of the future.
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This toolkit is divided into two parts:
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The first considers the strategic drive for digital transformation, its envisaged impact and the workforce required to deliver it.
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The second part looks at possible routes’ employers can take to identify their digital skill needs and establish how digital apprenticeship can address them. This part of the toolkit also explores how digital apprenticeships operate in practice and the options that can enable diversity and inclusion.
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Why consider Digital Apprenticeships?
Research undertaken by Health Education England predicts the number of skilled people to support digital transformation must increase, for the NHS to achieve its ambitions.
Apprenticeships offer NHS Employers an alternative route to upskill its existing workforce as well as recruit new talent. The way in which apprenticeships are structured enable people to earn whilst they learn, whilst enabling employers to pay for the programme through their levy, access financial incentives and reduce entry criteria (where appropriate) to reduce barriers to entry and therefore offer opportunities to a wider range of people that might not be suitable to apply for qualified roles. Digital apprenticeships are able to provide developmental opportunities across all levels.
Digital transformational across the NHS
The NHS Education England commissioned pioneering studies that show the potential benefits of digital transformation. They identify the critical importance of digital innovation in the NHS to maximise the impact of its resources and provide a fully integrated service to benefit its patients.
The use of innovative digital technologies is already very much in evidence with robot assisted operations, advanced diagnostics, voice recognition note taking, telecommunication consultations and technologies that help patients at home monitor and manage chronic conditions. This is and will continue to change the way patients interact and access services from the NHS.
The demand for digital technologies is going to increase and the NHS will need to recruit, maintain and support a digitally skilled and enabled workforce supported by a robust and fit for purpose digital infrastructure.
The COVID pandemic has changed the way we work and in many cases the way we access the services provided by the NHS. Technology has been employed to meet the challenges of the extraordinary but digital innovation is increasingly becoming the norm in many NHS services, and the need to be up to speed with the flexibility and vision to stay ahead of the curve has never been more important.
Digital innovation has created a new technological landscape for NHS staff and those that use its services. The question is, can digital transformation be sustained, and will the opportunities provided by digitalisation be realised?
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The Apprentices into Health pilot is designed specifically to address this issue. By developing a ‘pilot’ national approach to identifying possible opportunities and the recruitment of digital apprentices, it aims to secure a pipeline of new talent and support existing NHS staff to develop digital careers.
Additionally, it also aims to provide advice, guidance and support to NHS Employers, ICT departments and other departments that could benefit from hosting digital apprenticeships.
There are various NHS digital apprentice case studies across the internet. You can see an example of a case study by following this link at: NHS Digital Apprenticeship case study.
