Planning and Partnership Working

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan commits to supporting ICSs (Integrated care systems) to develop local apprenticeship strategies that maximise benefits from changes to funding approaches and to focus on workforce shortfalls and the deployment of roles that enhance patient outcomes.

A system-level apprenticeship strategy, with system-level oversight and planning, would better support organisations to grow and recruit their own staff, and enable ICSs to collaborate on their approaches to using apprenticeships with education providers both nationally and locally.

Evaluate the benefits of apprenticeships in your organisation by regularly analysing the performance and outcomes of your apprentices, this will allow you to see the current and future benefits to your business.

What can you do?

Assess your workforce development needs to identify the skills gaps within your system.

Look at your workforce plan and think about vacancies that could be considered as a future apprentice role and what resources you can pool/share to save on infrastructure costs.

Visit our Standards page and Job Family page to discover what apprenticeship standards could fit your needs.

Organisation and system senior leaders play an important role in the successful delivery of apprenticeship programmes. Gaining their buy-in and support will help embed apprenticeships into your workforce strategy. Visit the NHS Employers website to discover the different roles to review the key messages to communicate to each board member.

Use the resources available for particular areas, there are plenty of apprenticeship guides to help you.

Learn about how Apprenticeship Funding works .
Primary Care Apprenticeship Resources
If you are a Primary Care organisation, visit our Primary Care Apprenticeships page. Access some of resources to guide through taking on an apprentice and what apprenticeships are available.

Check out Primary Care Nursing Associate resources, how to contact your Primary and Community Care Training Hub, access case studies and more.

Read some of our Primary Care Case Studies

Discover the routes into Primary Care Health Careers resource.

The Primary Care Nursing and Community Nursing Apprenticeship Standards Factsheets also give a brief overview of the apprenticeship standards in this area:
- Primary Care Nursing Factsheet
- Community Nursing Factsheet
Check out these Nursing Associate resources:
- Trainee Nursing Associate in Primary Care – A quick guide to introducing Trainee Nursing Associates (TNAs) into Primary Care.
- Training Nursing Associates in Primary Care Pathway – The steps to employ TNAs in Primary Care.
- Training Nursing Associate – Primary Care checklist
How others have done it!
When it comes to partnership working, and how others have done it, read some of our employer case studies.
- Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – read about the diverse range of apprenticeships that this trust offers and the benefits that it has brought to the organisation.
- Joined Up Careers Derbyshire – Rotational Apprentice Programme – learn how Joined Up Careers brings together local partner organisations to support the current and future health and social care workforce.
- NHS South Yorkshire Apprenticeship Placement Agreement – When the trainee Nursing Associate (tNA) programme became an apprenticeship, this partnership group collaborated to select a Higher Education training provider, standardise entry criteria and uniforms and to support placements.
- FE Colleges step up to provide Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeships – Read these case studies to find out more about how these employers and colleges are working together locally to create a Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship route.
You can access our full case study section here.

Organisational Strategy Next Funding