From conception to birth: a policy analysis of the NHS University

PRESS NOTICE

New report by Professor Celia Davies published by The Nuffield Trust

20 August 2002

The National Health Service University is a first in terms of being a Western, public sector, corporate university covering a million more people. How will it see its missions and goals?

From Conception to Birth: A Policy Analysis of the NHS University by Celia Davies, Professor of Health Care at the Open University, is published today by The Nuffield Trust.

Professor Davies’s report explores the origins of the idea of an NHS university, the ways it has been seen by interested parties, and the challenges that this engenders. She traces how a vision generated from outside mainstream health policy was progressively integrated into it, considers the wider context of relations between education providers and the NHS, and sketches the way in which the higher education sector as a whole is being reconfigured.

The Labour Party’s Spring 2001 manifesto made a clear commitment to the establishment of a University of the NHS ‘to guarantee to staff at all levels opportunities for career development. Healthcare assistants, porters, cooks and cleaners will be offered an individual learning account worth £300 a year to develop their careers. We will examine the potential for sabbaticals to help GPs, consultant nurses and consultants keep their skills up to date.’

‘The idea of a NHS university is closely bound up with the Government’s modernisation project,’ says Professor Davies. ‘A new kind of service, it seems, requires a new kind of educational support. Finding a place in an already crowded policy field, and coping with a legacy of uneasy relations with a changing higher education sector will be among the key tasks for the NHSU,’ says Professor Davies.

‘The potential of the NHSU is that it is taking a place on a crowded stage, amongst a number of new players, all eager to demonstrate what they can achieve in terms of the NHS change agenda,’ says Professor Davies. ‘It is starting out in a world of tense and complex relationships, where fault and blame are close to the surface and where government has taken more control of the agenda than ever before.

‘The NHSU will have an important place in defining the new field of lifelong learning and, in doing so, in contributing to the reconfiguration of higher education as a whole.’

John Wyn Owen CB, Secretary of the Nuffield Trust, said, ‘In publishing this report, The Nuffield Trust reaffirms its commitment to promoting independent analysis and informed debate about UK health care policy. In particular, the Trust has been keen to stimulate a rethinking of the tripartite mission of service, education and research that underpins the work of the NHS. This report contributes to that debate.’

Notes for Editors

1. Bids to talk to Professor Davies, and requests for review copies of the book, should be directed to Sheila Thompson on 020 7591 9610 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              020 7591 9610      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
2. From Conception to Birth: A Policy Analysis of the NHS University by Professor Celia Davies is published by The Nuffield Trust at £19.50 and is available from 59 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP (Tel 020 7631 8450 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              020 7631 8450      end_of_the_skype_highlighting).
3. The Nuffield Trust for Research and Policy Studies in Health Services was established by Viscount Nuffield in 1940. Today, the Trust acts as an independent commentator on the UK health scene and the National Health Service. It has set out to illuminate current issues through informed debate, meetings and publications, and has also commissioned research and policy studies aimed at the development of policy and improvement of health studies.
4. Professor Celia Davies is Professor of Health Care at the School of Health and Social Welfare at the Open University.
5. John Wyn Owen CB is the Secretary of The Nuffield Trust.