Coronary Heart Disease
Background
The National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease (NSF CHD), published in March 2000, set out a strategy to modernise CHD services over ten years. It details 12 standards for improved prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation and goals to secure fair access to high quality services.
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a preventable disease that kills more than 110,000 people in England every year. More than 1.4 million people suffer from angina and 275,000 people have a heart attack annually. CHD is the biggest killer in the country. The Government is committed to reducing the death rate from coronary heart disease and stroke and related diseases in people under 75 by at least 40% (to 83.8 deaths per 100,000 population) by 2010.
Workforce planning
Workforce planning is one of the national programmes that will underpin the implementation of this CHD NSF. Effective services for CHD require a well educated and appropriately trained workforce at all levels. This includes a commitment to lifelong learning and personal development alongside a focus on specific skill areas and an understanding of whole system working. Work on specific education and training priorities has been undertaken nationally as part of workforce planning. Each local delivery strategy will need to maximise existing skills
and take account of gaps and overlaps in the current local workforce.
Another key to delivery is an assessment of the workforce to ensure that current
capability is recognised, and shortfalls in skills tackled. A whole system approach to the
workforce is needed through the local arrangements for workforce planning overseen by
local education and training consortia, which regional offices have a responsibility to
performance manage.
'The NHS, Working Together' is a new national workforce strategy published by the Government. This is a key underpinning strategy for the NSF. Its aims are to ensure that the
NHS is served by a high quality workforce, in the right numbers, with the right skills.
Workforce planning raises several issues, for example
- Potential new or extended roles
- New models of care
- New types of team working across organisational boundaries and new settings
- New education and training needs
- A stronger emphasis on self care and patient empowerment.
Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team has developed the Six Steps Methodology to Integrated Workforce Planning to address these issues. The main aim of the six steps is to set out in a practical framework those elements that should be in any workforce plan.
Workforce planning resources
Workforce will be a key factor in determining successful delivery of the National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease. In view of this, this short guide aims to help local implementation teams, CHD networks (where they are developing), local modernisation review leads and other stakeholders address their workforce needs to deliver the NSF. The guide has been developed with the help of the CHD Care Group Workforce Team. The guide sets out some key priorities for planning for the workforce to deliver the CHD NSF, and offers some ideas which may help to meet workforce needs.
