enhance: South West
Welcome to the South West enhance: Generalist skills programme
The South West is piloting a new programme of teaching to enhance generalist skills for health and care professionals. This is part of a national programme.
Following the NHS long term plan and subsequent people plan report, Health Education England launched the future doctor report, which highlighted the need for a greater proportion of doctors and all other healthcare professionals to have generalist skills. Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the need to enhance generalist skills to create adaptable clinicians better able to meet patient need and to address population health needs of local populations. The enhance, or enhancing generalist skills, programme, is an interwoven professional development offer that delivers this vision. The recent NHS long term workforce plan emphasises the importance of generalist skills needed to care for patients and it is mandated that the enhance programme be expanded to demonstrate the benefits of more generalist approaches to education and training. The initial rapid changes have led to a focus on more long-term population needs, for which healthcare professionals must both acquire new and enhance existing generalist skills as an integral part of their professional development.
Our vision in the South West is to champion a person-centred, 'team around the person' approach, by working across different disciplines to promote collaboration through compassionate and empathetic leadership.
There are two educational development offers available as part of the South West programme. Read on for more information about each training offer and how to apply.
What are enhance Generalist skills?
Skills that enable best practice across the NHS, regardless of specialism, with the aim of delivering better joined-up care, staff and patient experience and health outcomes. The enhance generalist skill domains are; person-centred practice; system working; complex multi-morbidity; social justice; environmental sustainability and population health. Find out more about the programme: NHS England Enhancing Generalist Skills or watch this introduction video. To learn more about the enhance programme you can download our handbook here.
Our educational development offers:
Gloucestershire Trailblazer Project:
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHNHSFT) is an NHS England pilot site for the enhance programme.
The enhance programme recognises the need for healthcare professionals to develop a range of generalist skills, in order to better meet patient need and improve the health of local populations.
Clinicians with generalist skills are confident at managing complex care within multi-professional teams, and can work across community, primary and secondary healthcare settings in order to provide person-centred care for a broad range of health conditions.
By developing a holistic approach to the health and wellbeing of both individuals and local populations, clinicians of all disciplines can help to improve patient experience and the quality of healthcare.
Our Programme
A free, part-time, multi-professional course.
Currently in development and is due to be launched June 2024 for September intake.
Contact Details:
Dr Sean Elyan, Clinical Lead
Dr Caroline Bailey, Senior Clinical Fellow
Ruth Bafta, Programme Support Administrator
Please direct all queries to the Gloucestershire Trailblazer team at ghn-tr.enhancesw@nhs.net
North Devon Generalist Trailblazer Project:
The North Devon based Trailblazer project is one of seven UK pilot sites blazing the trail. We offer a mixed clinical and educational programme, working through the key domains and themes, to support the next generation of clinicians to develop a wide range of skills and to enable them to work effectively and develop personalised approaches across healthcare. We aim to encourage our workforce to pursue best practice through ‘person centred’ care, regardless of speciality, as well as linking across departmental boundaries, primary care, secondary care and the voluntary sector.
How the programme will run:
At North Devon, you have the option to undertake the Enhance Explore or the Enhance Enable Option.
Enhance Explore - This is aimed at Post Foundation Doctors. Applications for a clinical post at North Devon Hospital for 12 months, which will commence in August. Alongside your clinical post, you will have protected time for Generalism contact days and workshops, including research for your own Quality Improvement Project.
Enhance Enable - This is aimed at all Foundation Doctors and can be completed remotely, through a combination of workbooks and online resources. This is completed in your own time and is a minimum of 36 hrs in total. When signing up at North Devon, you will be assigned an educational supervisor who will help assess your progress.
The projects will contain themes relating to Remote, Rural and Coastal Healthcare, aimed at specific demographics and challenges of the locality and with the goal of advancing healthcare provision, sustainability and resource stewardship by working across and breaking down barriers in the local area.
The Enhance Programme goals:
- To work effectively across health and care developing personalised approaches to multimorbidity and complexity
- Advocate for social justice
- Reduce health inequalities
- Be community and population-orientated in their approach
- Take responsibility for resource stewardship creating sustainable processes and practice
- Work and lead collaboratively, inclusively and compassionately within multidisciplinary teams, and across organisations and systems.
These future doctors will lead on overcoming processes that risk fragmented, duplicated and disjointed care resulting in error, waste and patient safety implications.
This programme offers motivated fellows a unique opportunity to participate in a ground-breaking project to develop healthcare provision in a beautiful geographical area and develop their interests and professional skills.
Contact Details:
Dr Mark Fresch, Clinical Lead
Dr Tom Cracknell, Senior Clinical Fellow
Dr Philippa Hardy, Senior Clinical Fellow
Andrea Stanley, Senior Clinical Fellow
Tabitha Campbell, Clinical Fellow
Vanessa Robinson, Clinical Fellow
Madeleine Carter, Generalist Programme Officer
Please direct all queries to the North Devon Trailblazer team to rduh.ndenhance@nhs.net