Healthcare Support Workers (HCSWs)

Collectively there are around 23,000 clinical Support Workers across nursing, midwifery and allied health professions in NHSScotland.

Within the wider health and social care workforce Support Workers are widely dispersed in GP practices, community teams, care homes and provide care at home service.

NES Healthcare Support Worker team’s role

Support the learning and development of clinical nursing, midwifery and allied health profession (NMAHP) support workers.
Work with team leaders to explore skills mix across multi-disciplinary teams to maximise the contribution and development of clinical NMAHP support worker roles.

The Support Worker “voice” is at the heart of our programme of work and is enormously important in keeping NES in touch with what support workers want and need and letting us know if we are getting it right. The HCSW Advisory Group, Associate Practice Educator Network and HCSW Education Network are a big part of connecting us to the support worker workforce to hear the support worker voice.

Key resources

HCSW Framework

The Development and Education Framework for level 2-4 Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions (NMAHP) Healthcare Support Workers (HCSWs) recognises how complex NMAHP HCSW roles have become and helps to explain the difference in expectations and learning for NMAHP HCSWs in Career Framework Levels 2, 3 and 4.

The framework supports the development of core knowledge, skills, and behaviours in the four pillars of practice and enables profession specific and specialist knowledge, skills and behaviours to be added for all NMAHP HCSWs working at Levels 2–4. The information presented in each of the Four Pillars of Practice is relevant for any NMAHP HCSW role and should be applied to the setting that the HCSW is working within.

Induction Standards and Code of Conduct (Healthcare Support Worker)

The Scottish Government mandatory Induction Standards apply to all new Healthcare Support Workers (HCSWs) joining NHSScotland and require to be met within the first three months of service (pro rata for part-time workers).

The Induction Standards are made up of fourteen interlinked statements which have been grouped into four clusters to make them easy to apply in the workplace. They offer a way to introduce new information and to support new employees understand their role in relation to:

Protecting patients and the public
Health, safety and security
Working with people
Working and developing in the role

NES support the Induction Standards with the provision of educational resources which have been developed and reviewed in consultation with stakeholders.

Support Worker Central

This is the central hub for information, events and resources to support learning and development of nursing, midwifery and allied health professions support workers in Scotland working across all care settings. Access Support Worker Central.

Staying in touch

The quarterly newsletter provides updates and insights in support worker learning and development. Sign up for the newsletter.

Contact: hcsw@nes.scot.nhs.uk

X: @NES_hcsw