New Care Certificate Implementation Toolkit To Support Health and Care Apprenticeships

The Skills Platform, part of Skills for Health, has launched a free new toolkit designed to directly support those responsible for delivering the Care Certificate to new employees as part of their induction and for upskilling current employees working in health and social care.

Designed to meet the requirements set out in the Cavendish Review, The Care Certificate is a set of 15 minimum standards which specify the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to provide compassionate, safe, high quality and consistent care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) expects the Care Certificate to be implemented by relevant organisations; it is a requirement for health and nurse Apprenticeships and is also more recently, a key component of Assistant Practitioner Apprenticeships.

The Skills Platform launched The Care Certificate Implementation Toolkit to drive improved implementation of the Care Certificate across all health and social care settings – thereby delivering improved standards, consistency and ultimately better patient outcomes. It includes top tips linked, quotes from practitioners and links to valuable resources. It also offers guidance and examples of good practice based on a programme designed and run by St Christopher’s Hospice, who were involved in the original pilots and were the first organisation to have their programme certificated by an Awarding Organisation.

John Rogers, CEO of Skills for Health, comments:

“With 1.3 million health and social care staff working across the UK, we are proud to have created this toolkit to help employers new to the Care Certificate by  empowering them to feel confident about what it was designed to do and helping them to decide the best way to implement it successfully in their organisation.

“From small independent care homes, to experienced learning and development teams, our toolkit also offers opportunities for existing staff to refresh or improve their knowledge and skills – using the standards and assessment criteria within the Care Certificate to assess their existing and ongoing training needs.”

Garbett, Vocational Programmes Manager at St Christopher’s Hospice, comments:

“We apply the same standards of teaching and assessment to The Care Certificate as we do to our vocational qualifications and Apprenticeships, which is why we sought external certification from City & Guilds. As a member of the Health Trailblazer groups I am delighted to see The Care Certificate within the Apprenticeships Standards for Health and Assistant Practitioners ensuring the learning and skills that it contains are part of the Apprentices journey. I am sure this guide will be a great help to employers and training providers.”

Professor Kay Fawcett OBE, executive leader and influencer across health and social care, has written the foreword for the toolkit and concludes:

“This toolkit, developed with support from St Christopher’s Hospice, sets out simple steps to ensure that Care Certificate preparation is completed rigorously for the benefit of the learner and those that will receive care in the future.”