Overview
- The Health and Social Care Secretary made a statement in March 2025 to the House of Commons on plans to abolish NHS England.
More on this here
- Health Education England (HEE) merged with NHS England (now NHS England Workforce Training and Education Directorate) in February 2023. This means that NHS England has assumed responsibility for all activities previously undertaken by Health Education England. This includes planning, recruiting, educating and training the health workforce, ensuring that the healthcare workforce has the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours in place to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement to patients and the public. This follows the merger of NHS Digital with NHS England on the 1 February 2023. The systems and services, functions, processes and structures of Health Education England will continue to operate as normal, and contracts will automatically transfer to NHS England, with terms and conditions unchanged. Learn more about the NHSE/HEE merge here
- Any reference to HEE throughout this page is reflective of the organisation title at the time of the item being published.
Without a skilled workforce there is no NHS. There are few careers that are as rewarding as one in the NHS, or that give you the opportunity to work with such a variety of people. Each and every one can make a difference to patients.
More than 160,000 students are studying to be part of their future workforce. That includes doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, physiotherapists and many more roles - in fact there are over 300 different jobs performed by more than one million people in the NHS.
The vision of NHSE is to provide the right workforce, with the right skills and values, in the right place, at the right time, to better meet the needs and wants of patients - now and in the future.
Ongoing Project Updated Summer 2025
The ALIGNS Project (AHPs Leading InteGration betweeN Social Care and Health)
The overall ALIGNS programme objective is to support AHPs in the South East to lead on strengthening the integration between Social Care and Health services, with a focus on adult care, for the benefit of the community they serve. BHSCA is working in partnership with Allied Health Solutions (AHS), to deliver this NHSE SE WT&E commissioned programme.
The aim is to support the AHPs in the SE to lead on strengthening the integration between H≻ this work is based on the NHSE AHPs Integration Framework, published in 2023.
Buckinghamshire is one of four regional case study sites with a focus on developing a proof of concept for Enhanced Care Integration Teams, and exploring the development of a new volunteer role to support frail adults transitioning from the NHS into social care.
The end of project report is scheduled to be delivered in Summer/Autumn 2025.
Preparation for Practice Placements Project
The Preparation for Practice Placements Project is designed to help further/higher education and practice educators prepare learners on pre-registration healthcare programmes for their practice-based learning experiences. It provides a set of resources, including an animation, ten short films, and a facilitator handbook. The content has been mapped to the Safe Learning Environment Charter Standards.
- For nursing, midwifery and allied health professional learners, the resources aim to build understanding, confidence, and the behaviours necessary to thrive in practice environments and to deliver safe, effective care.
- For educators, they serve as tools to enhance teaching efforts that support learner readiness for practice-based learning.
The project is a collaboration between NHS England South East, the University of Surrey, and the Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy, involving contributions from learners, educators, and service users across South East England.
Aspirant Educator Masterclasses
What is it?
A free, on-line masterclass that will give healthcare professionals an insight into different practice educator/educator roles in clinical practice and university, and feel prepared and supported to apply and thrive in those roles.
The programme aims to:
- Enable healthcare practitioners to develop an insight into practice educator/educator roles.Enable healthcare practitioners to be prepared to access practice educator/educator roles in a range of settings.Support the implementation of the Educator Workforce Strategy and Long- Term Workforce Plan.
Learning Outcomes:
On successful completion of the programme, you will be able to:
Content of the Masterclasses:
Presentation and discussion:
Who is the target audience?
Any health care professional of any grade who is registered or non-registered, and has been working in a role where education of others is a large part of their work.
A webinar, providing more information on the Masterclasses was held on 19/09/24.
View the webinar below or access here
NHS VOICES: educating the Healthcare Workforce
A podcast series to support the Aspirant Educator Project, hosted by Mary Jenkins, an NHSE RePAIR fellow.
"Tune in for conversations with nurses, midwives and allied health professionals.
Hear about what hooked them into education roles, how they made that leap, how they navigated the bumps in the road & prepared for when the right job came up."
The Aspirant Educator project review was completed in January 2025, showcasing the impact and reflections from attendees, and the ask for the future.
View the project review below, or click here to download the full review presentation.
The NHS Long-Term Plan
The first comprehensive workforce plan for the NHS, putting staffing on a sustainable footing and improving patient care. It focuses on retaining existing talent and making the best use of new technology alongside the biggest recruitment drive in health service history.
Useful Links & Resources
The NHS belongs to the people and is founded on a common set of principles and values that bind together the communities and people it serves - patients and public - and the staff who work for it.
This is called The NHS Constitution for England.
This Constitution establishes the principles and values of the NHS in England.
It sets out rights to which patients, public and staff are entitled, and pledges that which the NHS is committed to achieve, together with responsibilities, which the public, patients and staff owe to one another to ensure that the NHS operates fairly and effectively.
NHS values
Patients, public and staff have helped develop this expression of values that inspire passion in the NHS and that should underpin everything it does. Individual organisations will develop and build upon these values, tailoring them to their local needs. The NHS values provide common ground for co-operation to achieve shared aspirations, at all levels of the NHS.
