Campaign launched to recognise NHS support workers

Skills for Health and the National Skills Academy for Health have launched a new campaign that aims to highlight the role of support workers in the NHS.

There are currently 798,600 support workers across the UK health sector, which make up 40 per cent of the healthcare workforce, including healthcare assistants, assistant practitioners, porters, cleaners, caterers, maintenance staff and administrative staff.

Skills for Health describes these support workers as the ‘unsung heroes’ of the NHS and has launched the campaign to raise awareness and celebrate the work that they do by urging patients who have benefitted from the help of support staff to share their stories and thanks through social media using #OurHealthHeroes.

Ian Wheeler, head of research, labour market intelligence & evaluation at Skills for Health, says: “Support worker roles are critical, ensuring that hospital and healthcare practices around the UK are running efficiently and effectively, yet they often go unnoticed.

“Our research shows it is only by understanding the contribution and value of the support worker role that the health sector will be able to realise its potential in terms of productivity and efficiency. By creating higher quality roles for support staff and providing better progression opportunities for support workers into registered roles, millions could be saved every year in the UK health sector.”