Lifelong learning, partnership and modernization in the NHS

Abstract

The research involves examination of trade union involvement in training and education in the NHS which is explicitly linked to skills development, career structures and underpinned by a lifelong learning framework. The data derive from case studies of seven NHS organizations in England. Previous research indicates how UNISON-employer learning partnerships provide high-quality education programmes for non-traditional learners and represent a process of institution building. This paper indicates the challenges for workplace activists to be involved in skills development in the context of workforce modernization and in the absence of formal learning partnerships.

Keywords:

• Lifelong learning
• skills development
• union learning representatives
• health services modernization
• labour substitution

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research gathered during the study of Skills Escalator activities commissioned by the Department of Health, Policy Research Programme. The article represents the views of the authors and not the Department of Health. The full research team comprises Anne McBride, Annette Cox, Stephen Mustchin, Marilyn Carroll, Paula Hyde, Elena Antonacopoulou, Kieran Walshe and Helen Woolnough.

The authors should like to thank the reviewers for their very constructive comments on this paper. Thanks are also extended to participants at the Public Sector Conference of the Employment Relations Unit, Cardiff University for their comments on an earlier version.

Notes

1 A survey of ULRs conducted in 2003 for the TUC suggested that these new representatives are increasingly young (one in six new activists were under 35), female (59%) and from ethnic minority backgrounds (a three-fold increase in the proportion since 2000, accounting for 6 per cent of ULRs). At the time of this study, approximately 6,500 union members had completed Union Learning Representative training courses (Moore and Wood, 2005).

2 The term ‘modernization’ has generally been used in policy discourses to describe increased private sector involvement in public services, as well as attempts to reform pay, working conditions and work practices (Bach, 2002).

3 The NHS Modernization Agency was set up in 2001 and disbanded in July 2005 with some of its functions transferred to the new NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. The agency promoted various courses concerned with ‘service improvement’ in a range of managerial and clinical areas, in an attempt to drive forward notions of ‘modernization’ and changes to working practices.