What is the National Induction Framework: Social Care?
The National Induction Framework: Social Care is the result of a collaborative project between NHS Education for Scotland (NES) Social Care Directorate and the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC). It’s a programme of learning for all workers across adult social care in Scotland who are taking up a new support worker or practitioner role. It will provide learners with a foundation of knowledge that is relevant to their role, through accessible eLearning courses and learning materials which will be completed flexibly during their induction period.
A record of learning will automatically be populated on the learner’s My Learning App. Should the learner switch roles, the record of learning can be provided as evidence of completed learning, allowing time to be freed up to, for example, provide direct care.
The main aim of the National Induction is to ensure that all workers in adult social care in Scotland have access to high quality learning. Other benefits of the programme include:
- Reducing the time it takes for employers to induct workers who have already completed the National Induction Framework
- Reducing or removing the need for workers to repeat learning that they have already completed when starting a new role
- Avoiding duplication by providing organisations with free, quality learning materials
Access to the programme is completely free of charge for everyone and just requires a Turas account and access to the My Learning App.
Why have we created the National Induction Framework: Social Care?
Background
About 2,250 workers join the social care workforce every year, a significant proportion of whom will change roles throughout their career. Workers may move from one type of service to another (for example, from home care to care homes) or from one part of the sector to another (for example, from the private to the public sector).
The impact
This movement within the workforce has put significant pressure on organisations when providing new staff with induction training to prepare them for work. Because many workers are beginning new roles having already worked in social care previously, they are often completing duplicate learning on topics which they’ve already covered. This may waste valuable time for both new workers and employers and requires organisations across Scotland to invest resources into creating learning materials on the same topics.
The solution
The Joint Social Services Task Force (JSST), with representation from across the social care sector, identified this as a problem requiring a solution at a national level. With funding from Scottish Government, NES and the SSSC have been working in partnership to develop a National Induction Framework for adult social care in Scotland.
What work has been done?
From the beginning of this project, the two organisations worked closely with the social care sector to identify the core learning outcomes and material that new workers entering social care will need. This involved ten stakeholder engagement sessions with organisations across all adult social care sectors in Scotland, as well as a Delphi survey to establish consensus on the identified learning outcomes.
This engagement highlighted the importance of setting national standards and aligning induction with the current National Occupational Standards and the Scottish Vocational Qualifications Framework. Stakeholders also focussed on the importance of quality in the development of a national induction. We are aware that providers value being able to accept evidence of prior learning from induction, as ultimately, they have a legal responsibility to ensure their staff have the right knowledge, skills and training. To address this, we’ve been working with the Care Inspectorate and other relevant agencies to ensure that these concerns are addressed.
Following on from this, we began to design the Turas Learn National Induction Learning Zone and to populate this with relevant, quality-assured content to cover all of the topics which stakeholders identified as necessary for induction. This content is all hosted on Turas Learn, which is NES’ free learning platform, and learners will be able to sync their progress with the SSSC’s MyLearning app. We also designed a completion certificate that learners will receive when they have completed their learning.
In January and February 2025, we launched a pilot of the National Induction Framework with a selection of adult social care organisations from across Scotland. The feedback from the pilot was overwhelmingly positive, with participants rating the content 4 out of 5 stars. Learners thought the Learning Zone was easy to use and linked easily with the SSSC MyLearning platform. We heard about positive experiences from learners, employers and supervisors, and all groups said that they would recommend the programme to others.
What’s next?
The National Induction Framework is set to launch on the 14th May, after which it will be freely available for any adult social care workers and organisations in Scotland. Following on from the launch, our team will be working with organisations at a local level to assist with implementation, as well as hosting regular events to share information about the project and to hear feedback from those who are using it.
We will provide regular updates on the progress of the work here. If you have any questions, please get in touch with us at nes.socialcare@nhs.scot
Last updated: Wednesday, April 9, 2025