SUCCESSION PLANNING: IHEEM ROUNDTABLE
Engineering Council’s Patricia Behal to comment on whether the professional institutions’ current challenge in making the case for a national apprenticeship scheme was something the Engineering Council shared. She said: “While the Engineering Council doesn’t get involved in the development of individual apprenticeships, we are aware of some of the challenges via feedback from the professional engineering institutes. We don’t collect data on employer needs, so are typically reliant on information from the professional engineering institutes like IHEEM and HefmA. We do, however, hear similar concerns around construction – an ageing workforce, and skills shortages. It all sounds very familiar.”
Geoff Neild said: “We have an ageing estates and facilities workforce, and little real understanding of its profile.”
back this up. Nor do we know how many positions will be affected by ‘CIP’ targets this year, or what the formal and informal training budgets are for Estates & Facilities Departments. We will be collecting all that data; fortunately the system is being really receptive to giving us that information.”
A ‘GAP’ analysis
Fiona Daly continued: “We also need to think about non-organisation-specific skills across STPs, so we will carry out a ‘gap’ analysis focusing on what skills and career mapping EFM personnel have today, versus what they will need tomorrow, including basic engineering- wise. Geoff and I been working on this jointly, and I have also been trying to support John Thatcher at Eastwood Park, since the National Programme team have not been that enthusiastic to date.” Here Peter Sellars invited the
Eastwood Park’s perspective John Thatcher said: “We have formed our own perspective on this at Eastwood Park, via research and talking to Eileen Bayles etc. The NHS is reasonably well represented in apprenticeships overall, and NHS Trusts, as larger organisations, are picking up the Apprenticeship Levy better than others, although they are still underspending their levies. Not well represented, however, are the EFM functions. So, there is an issue not just with the ‘industry’ (healthcare) being marginalised within apprenticeship development, but actually with E&FM being marginalised within healthcare. Apprenticeships are so key; they are hierarchical and provide career development opportunities, and you can do multiple apprenticeships at any age.” John said he ‘found it slightly frustrating’ that ‘other very specialist sectors’ were able to make a case for apprenticeships, while healthcare engineering and estates and facilities management faced such a tough challenge. He said: “I know there is even a
Fiona Daly of NHSI said: “What is great is that we are working successfully with appropriate policy-makers and across government departments to gain support for our work.”
specialist apprenticeship for fairground ride maintenance” – an example of how specific some existing apprenticeships were, and how small a workforce they might apply to, compared with the ‘massive workforce’ in the NHS.
A lack of understanding? Fiona Daly said: “I think there is a bit of a lack of understanding among the national apprenticeship team dealing with this, because a) they put us in construction, and b), they go round in circles. For instance I was asked why, with a BIFM apprenticeship already in place, we couldn’t simply use this as the basis for our engineering one. We are doing a bit more of a ‘gap’ analysis on this, but I will be pointing out that you would need to create some healthcare-specific modules, for instance on Decontamination, Infection Control, and Medical Gases etc. These are simply not disciplines that are relevant in, say, a hotel.”
Scottish position
Geoff Neild said: “In fact NHS Scotland has a healthcare-specific apprenticeship through Sheffield Hallam University, but it is not available in England; so you have an English-led qualification only available in Scotland currently.”
Decontamination & Pressure Systems portfolio manager at Eastwood Park, Bruce Garbutt, with apprentices at the Gloucestershire training centre.
34 Health Estate Journal August 2018
Pete Sellars said: “I would like Kim Phillips of Eta Projects’ view. She said: “I will be presenting at this year’s Healthcare Estates show with the main topics around Diversity and Inclusion, and ‘Women in engineering’. I am currently in the process of gathering data for the presentation. On another note, however, I attended my niece’s Careers Day recently, and it was disappointing that there was no NHS presence for estates engineering. I think we need to penetrate the schools in the first instance and contribute at careers days;
©Eastwood Park Training
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