Skills for Health launches new quality assurance audit for NHS training

Skills for Health has introduced a new quality assurance audit service to replace its Quality Mark programme, which had been in place since 2013.

The sector skills council for healthcare said the new system offers greater robustness, improved benchmarking, and enhanced compliance insights for NHS providers.

Quality Mark was originally launched as part of the Cavendish Review to provide a standardised process for assuring the quality of NHS education and training. Over the past 12 to 18 months, it has been phased out in favour of a new audit programme designed to offer deeper insights and more structured evaluation.

Cathy Gallagher of Skills for Health said the changes reflect the scale and importance of NHS education and training, which receives approximately £4bn in funding annually.

‘Independent quality assurance audit ensures that NHS providers’ learning and development activities align to National Occupational Standards and Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework, whilst remaining compliant with statutory and mandatory training requirements,’ she said.

She added that the new programme incorporates sector benchmarking and learner feedback mechanisms to support continuous improvement and workforce development.

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Europe’s largest single-site cancer centre, is among the first to undergo the new audit. Eleanor McManus, associate director of education at The Christie Institute for Cancer Education, said independent quality assurance plays a key role in maintaining service standards.

‘It ensures that robust learning outcomes are identified, and diverse learning needs are accommodated to drive skills development that supports excellent cancer care,’ she said.
Scottish Ambulance Service has also worked with Skills for Health to review its Incident Response and Command (IRaC) course. John Carolan Cullion, training compliance manager, said the audit had helped identify strengths and areas for improvement in the training syllabus.

‘The approach was collaborative and insightful, and provided valuable feedback on how to optimise our training goals. We have already begun implementing the recommendations and are seeing positive results,’ he added.