Workforce and training updates - March 2021

Great news on workforce and training - Increase in training commissions for 2021 - Tony Lavender, Jan Hughes and Paul Salkovskis

Health Education England has announced that there will be a very significant increase in clinical psychology commissions for the 2021 entry in England.

Last year (2020), places expanded by 25 per cent at the last minute, and on top of this there will be a further increase of up to 30 per cent for 2021.

As Adrian Whittington (National Lead for Psychological Professions, NHS England/Improvement and HEE) wrote in making the announcement there is now the "huge challenge of delivering this" and thanked all involved for their "contribution and willingness to take up this opportunity. The increase of >60 per cent for the new intake over the past two years is going to make a really significant difference to the public. Needed now more than ever."

This news comes on top of Scotland and Northern Ireland consolidating the 2020 increase into the 2021 intake, and Wales agreeing a smaller increase.

This will be demanding for the programmes and services which are working together to successfully deliver the expansion without compromising the quality of training.

The need for services and supervisors to increase the number of trainees they take is clearly vital to delivery and will be required at a time when we will, hopefully, be in the midst of services returning to a more usual mode of operating.

It will mean services and supervisors offering an increased number of placements on a routine basis in order that we can meet the future and growing demand for psychological services.

The DCP, and in particular the Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology, are working with multiple stakeholders, including NHSE, HEE, and the Chief Psychological Professions Officers at a national, regional and local level.

A number of issues are being considered including the consistent utilisation of placement tariff money and the creative expansion of placement areas and populations.

Using a strap line from Obama's election campaigns, working together "yes we can" deliver.