HR professionals in the
health service have welcomed plans to create a NHS university to improve the
training and skills of health workers.
Health secretary Alan Milburn
outlined Labour’s proposals to create a university of the NHS which would allow
nurses to train to become doctors and porters to develop into managers.
The new NHS university would involve
a partnership between the NHS, existing universities and the private sector.
“Every nurse, and every doctor,
every therapist and every cleaner should be bound only by the limits of their
abilities,” he said.
Mike Griffin, HR director at Kings
College Hospital NHS Trust, said he welcomed the plans.
He said, “This is a very exciting
prospect. There is a big need for developments like this if the service is to
achieve the targets it has set itself. In order to bring in the necessary staff
to deliver the NHS plan there has to be an innovative approach to the
development and training of health care staff.
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“The
service has traditionally not had a lot of access to distance learning
facilities. Accelerated development of distance learning across a wide range of
skills and professions would be very much welcomed within the service.”
