National Occupational Standards (NOS)
What are National Occupational Standards?
National Occupational Standards (NOS) describe best practice by bringing together skills, knowledge and values. NOS are a valuable tool to be used as benchmarks for qualifications as well as defining roles at work, staff recruitment, supervision and appraisal.
The Health and Social Care National Occupational Standards are jointly owned by all the alliance partners within Skills for Care and Development and Skills for Health. Any review of NOS are undertaken jointly by all UK alliance partners.
NOS Reviews 2011: Health and Social Care and Children’s Care, Learning and Development
During this year two major suites of National Occupational Standards (NOS) are being reviewed and revised. These are:
Children’s Care, Learning and Development (CCLD)
Health and Social Care (HSC)
The HSC NOS are jointly owned by Skills for Care & Development and Skills for Health, and are being reviewed by both sectors.
Earlier in the year, people from across the UK took part in sector events or responded to online surveys to let us know their views on the HSC and CCLD NOS as they stand, and on how they’d like to see them updated. Everyone’s comments have been brought together so that we can start deciding on actual changes to be made. These are the key messages that were often repeated for each set of NOS:
These key messages have helped us decide the ‘big picture’ of changes needed.
NB. During the review process redrafted standards will only be available through the medium of English. Welsh versions of the standards will be available as soon as the final draft versions have been formally signed off.
Infection Prevention and Control National Occupational Standards (IPC NOS) review – get involved!
The revised IPC NOS are now available for public consultation. It is really important that the social care sector embraces these NOS as they are a key part of the work and services we deliver. The consultation period is ongoing until 31st October, 2011.
Please visit www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/consultations to make your comments.