HCPA Skills Audit

The HCPA Skills Audit is a service offered that sits alongside the Impartial Feedback Service. It concentrates on finding out more about the current skills levels of the workforce.

As an employer, you need to understand the learning and development needs of your individual workers and this tool will help you to do this.  The key benefits of a Skills Audit are:

• Valid and valuable Workplace Skills Plans
• Improved skills and knowledge
• Lower training and development costs because development efforts are more focused

Focussing on the Skills for Care core standards, the service provides the Leader with information collected directly from their care team to inform on how knowledgeable, competent and confident staff feel in their current job role.

The Skills Audit will also identify gaps and lapses in mandatory training. A report highlighting the skills gap is provided along with specific comments from staff and potential solutions. The full spreadsheet of data collected is provided to the manager to enable specific follow up and targeted support.

You will receive Graphical Highlight Reports for your Care Practitioners, Senior Staff and Managers, an overall report including specific comments and potential solutions , plus the spreadsheet giving you access to the data collected.

Overall Skills Gap = 73%

Potential development opportunities are identified on the charts, handling information scored lowest. Understanding the job role and communication are areas where staff feel particularly strong. Areas specifically identified by staff for further development opportunities within comments were:

• Dementia
• Palliative Care and End of Life – including communicating with families
• Medication
• Fire safety

All of the above can be accessed free of charge or at low cost via your HCPA membership. Please contact the office 01707 536020 for more information or visit the website : https://www.hcpa.info/training/ 

The Care staff felt knowledgeable in their roles, however some staff reported feeling less competent or confident which may need to be addressed via mentoring or coaching. Please see spreadsheet giving full details of responses.

Overall Skills Gap = 80%

There were a number of areas where staff identified themselves as feeling particularly confident including Communication, Understanding their Role, Personal Development. The lowest area of confidence is the area of Working in a Person Centred Way which scored lowest.

Training around Mental Capacity scored low alongside Fire Safety and Food Hygiene. As this part of the report is referring to Senior staff it may be prudent to address these areas as soon as possible.

All felt knowledgeable in their job roles, but there were some who did not feel competent or confident, this may need to be addressed via mentoring or coaching from other senior team members or directly via their line manager/leaders. Areas specifically identified by staff for further development opportunities were:

• Care Plans
• Wound Care
• End of Life
• Mental Health/Dementia/Learning Disability including mental capacity
• Supervision

This training can all be accessed free of charge or low cost via your HCPA membership. There are some Leadership Courses available for senior staff including Supervision and Appraisal available across the year. Coaching and Mentoring are incorporated within the Leadership Suite and some Pathways. Please call HCPA for further support or visit the website https://www.hcpa.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HCPA-Training-Planner-201920-V-1.0-.pdf.

Overall Skills Gap = 27%

The Managers reported a high confidence level in most subjects except for Governance and Regulatory Processes, Relationships and Partnership Working and Managing Resources. Relationships and Partnership Working scored particularly low. You may wish to access the Skills for Care Manager Induction Standards to revisit these specific areas here: https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Documents/Standards-legislation/Manager-Induction-Standards/Manager-Induction-Standards.pdf

You can utilise the Skills for Care document to benchmark practice within your organisation and as a reminder of what the standards involve. The HCPA Leadership Suite is available as part of your membership and Leading and Recognising Excellence in Care will cover the elements required to refresh.

In addition you may wish to review the HCPA Training Calendar herehttps://www.hcpa.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HCPA-Training-Planner-201920-V-1.0-.pdf to view more courses that are available to you via your HCPA membership.

Other areas where there may be an opportunity for professional development were in resources and entrepreneurial creativity, skills and service innovation. In terms of resources and planning Leading and Recognising Excellence in Care will cover this area and Leading a Compassionate Care Service and Strategies for Retaining a Competent Workforce will both be useful in terms of staffing resources.

HCPA run Managers Forums which could be useful in terms of networking and service innovation. Other training for Leaders and Managers.

HCPA are currently working on a new programme for Leaders called Inspire. This will contain a pick and mix range of qualifications and bite sized training that can be developed bespoke to an organisation. We are currently seeking funding opportunities to cover the full cost of this, if we are unsuccessful there may be costs involved but these will be kept to a minimum.

Please watch out for the HCPA E-news and training updates.