18 January 2021

New clinical coder apprenticeship launched

We are delighted to announce that Skills Training UK has been selected as the partner of choice for Health Education England to deliver the Clinical Coder Apprenticeship Standard (Level 3) nationally from April 2020.

Skills Training UK will deliver the Clinical Coder Apprenticeship Standard in collaboration with a range of leading Trusts and Specialist Training Providers. No individual procurement is therefore needed and each Trust will be able to access high quality training from our organisation.

The 21-day Clinical Coding Standards course, delivered by healthcare professionals, will be included in the Apprenticeship. NHS Trust employees completing the Apprenticeship will learn to apply detailed anatomical and physiological knowledge to translate patient records into the correct codes utilising OPCS-4. They will also learn how to extract and evaluate data effectively and use this to inform decision making, as well as gain an excellent understanding of communication and information governance.

Steven Mitchell, Director of Research, Innovation and Delivery for Skills Training UK, says: “We are delighted to be partnering Health Education England (HEE) as the National Training Provider for the Clinical Coder Apprenticeship Delivery across the NHS. We are already in discussion with more than 30 NHS Trusts to understand their needs and will be offering a choice of delivery models which recognise the existing Clinical Coding expertise and training capacity within each Trust.”

Skills Training UK has been working with the NHS to design and deliver Apprenticeships programmes since 2015 and currently partners with 25 NHS Trusts across England. We have a proven track record in helping to raise quality standards and ensure NHS Trusts get the best from their Apprenticeship Levy funding.

Our approach is focused on understanding each NHS Trust’s workforce goals and then tailoring our programmes to their needs. We can create programmes which combine, for example, Apprenticeships in Leadership and Management, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), Business Administration/Customer Service and (from April 2020) Clinical Coding.

As well as group and individual face-to-face learning we provide the added value of a digital learning platform and webinars to support the delivery.

One example of our NHS Trust partners is The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. We worked with them to develop a programme which aligned with the National Cancer Workforce Agenda, designing bespoke qualifications relevant to clinical teams. This included Business Administration with the addition of a Royal Marsden Level 2 Award in Cancer Terminology and, also, Business Administration with units from the CMI Level 3 in First Line Management. We also trained high-level management teams in leadership and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI).

Nina Singh, Director of Workforce, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, said: “As an organisation that has been rated outstanding at CQC level, we believe that our staff are at the heart of driving excellence. Skills Training UK has been the perfect partner to support us along this journey.”

NHS Trusts – why choose us?

• An established training provider working across 25 Trusts
• 92% of employers in the National Employer Satisfaction Survey (Ipsos Mori) said they were ‘highly likely or likely’ to recommend us.
• Ofsted said the impact of our training on business efficiency and profitability is “high and frequently financially quantifiable”.
• We love what we do and would love to see your NHS Trust making gains in productivity, efficiency and workforce satisfaction.

The Clinical Coder Apprenticeship will be officially launched on Thursday 6 February 2020 at ‘Shaping the Future of Staffing: NHS Workforce Strategy Congress’, being held at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and organised by Convenzis.