The Care Certificate
The Care Certificate is an agreed set of standards that define the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of Healthcare Assistants (HCAs) / Health Care Support Workers (HCSWs).
The Care Certificate is made up of 15 minimum standards that should be covered if you are ‘new to care’ and should form part of a robust induction programme.
It is achieved by completing both theory and applied practice within a work environment, after being assessed by an occupationally competent person.
The aim of the Certificate, designed by Health Education England, Skills for Care and Skills for Health, is to ensure that all non-regulated workforce are taught and can demonstrate the right skills, knowledge, values and behaviours to provide high quality and compassionate care.
Most staff will complete the Certificate within three months. Staff need to remain in ‘line of sight’ supervision until completion of standards.
CQC
The CQC regards the Care Certificate as a key indicator of staff training and competence and will look for evidence that the Care Certificate forms part of a practice’s induction process in their inspection. Read CQC's Position on the Care Certificate and inspector guide.
NORTH CENTRAL LONDON
In the North Central London Integrated Care System (ICS), the Care Certificate is the expected minimum standard for Healthcare Assistant training and induction.
It is the mandatory training for all non-registered staff before they engage in independent provision of patient care.
The London Regional Team have created this great video about the Care Certificate: Care Certificate - Healthcare Support Worker Programme - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform
Health Education England and eLearning for Health have also created an informative video which you can find here: The Care Certificate - Animation on Vimeo
The Care Certificate standards
The Care Certificate is based on 15 standards, which individuals need to complete in full before they can be awarded their certificate.
Some of the standards within the Care Certificate include:
understand your role
duty of care
communication
fluids and nutrition
safeguarding
infection prevention and control
The 15 standards in the Care Certificate are:
1. Understand your role | 6. Communication | 11. Safeguarding Children |
2. Your personal development | 7. Privacy and dignity | 12. Basic Life Support* |
3. Duty of care | 8. Fluids and nutrition | 13. Health and Safety |
4. Equality and diversity | 9. Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disability | 14. Handling information |
5. Work in a person centred way | 10. Safeguarding adults | 15. Infection prevention and control |
A detailed description of standards is available in the Care Certificate Framework (Standards).
*All performance required to meet the Standards must be assessed and no evidence of prior experience is allowed. The exception to this is Basic Life Support. Depending on the role and the Level of Basic Life Support training the individual is required to have it may be appropriate to recognise prior learning where this can be clearly evidenced and is within the recommended refresher period.
Regulated staff (e.g. Doctors, Nurses, Social Workers, Occupational Therapists) gain similar skills and knowledge within their professional training so they do not need to also achieve the Care Certificate.
The Care Certificate training
There are three main steps required to complete the Care Certificate training process:
STEP 1. Learner completes the Care Certificate e-learning and any relevant mandatory statutory training.
STEP 2. Learner works with a practice-based assessor to practice the skills covered by the e-learning and work through the Practice Assessment Document.
STEP 3. Employer/assessor confirms they are confident the learner meets all the standards and is ready for independent practice.
It is estimated that the full process can be completed as part of the staff member's induction into the new role over 12 weeks.
There are numerous Care Certificate training programmes available online from commercial providers, however, the learning of theory can be completed for free on the e-Learning for Health platform.
All health and care professionals are provided with free access to the Care Certificate e-learning.
The e-learning has been designed to support the theoretical component of their learning and provide a focus for discussion with the student’s mentors and assessors.
The Care Certificate programme offers interactive e-learning sessions structured to map to each of the Care Certificate standards. There are also scenarios for learners to apply their learning in a range of care environments.
The learning resources for each Care Certificate standard comprise:
an introduction,
e-learning session(s),
a knowledge assessment
and a set of post-session questions.
Each session takes around 20 to 30 minutes to complete and is available 24/7 from any device with an internet connection. It is possible to dip in and out of sessions and to access them in any order, as frequently as is needed.
For more information about the e-learning, including how to access, visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/care-certificate/
The employer is responsible for assuring the quality of training, supervision and assessment of ability of their Healthcare Assistants.
It's the employers responsibility to provide their staff with support to complete the Care Certificate and to judge the competency of their workers.
Healthcare providers have a duty to ensure that patients they care for are safe, and their health and welfare needs are met. They must ensure that their staff are competent to carry out their work and are properly trained, supervised and appraised.
It is expected that employers will use the Care Certificate standards to ensure that staff receive the training necessary so that they can develop the knowledge and competences necessary to provide safe and compassionate care of the highest quality. Possession of the Care Certificate will be one part of the evidence that they may need to make that decision. However, employers will naturally want to understand more about their new workers and what additional training and support may be required.
The Care Certificate e-learning can be accessed by all employers as a free resource to provide Care Certificate training to their Healthcare Assistants.
To complete all 15 standards of the e-learning, employers must provide all members of staff undertaking the training with an assessor who will observe their learning in practice and assess that their relevant Care Certificate competencies are sufficiently demonstrated in their workplace during real work activity.
In other words, the Care Certificate cannot be fully achieved through the use of e-learning and includes skills that must be assessed in the workplace.
The Care Certificate Framework provides further clarity.
To achieve the Care Certificate, a learner must acquire knowledge, by completing e-learning, and demonstrate competence in all 15 standards, with the help of an assessor.
The Assessor is the person responsible for making the decision on whether the Healthcare Assistant has met the Standard set out in the Care Certificate.
The assessment (including observing someone and assessing their competence) must be undertaken by someone who is 'occupationally competent', which means someone who has the necessary experience to judge whether the learner has demonstrated the required competences.
Assessors should have protected time to enable the learner to complete the Care Certificate training.
It is recommended that learners are provided with a minimum of 3 hours of supervised working time per week but each employer should formulate assessment plan for achievement.
The guidance does not specify that someone delivering the training and carrying out assessment needs a specified qualification. The employer must be satisfied that the assessor is competent to assess whether the worker meets the standards of the Care Certificate.
A learner may be assessed by many people over time which not only ensures the learner has experience of working alongside other team members but it also offers reassurance to all that the learner truly does meet the expected standards and demonstrates the attitudes beliefs and behaviours.
The assessment process has to be rigorous, as an assessor every opportunity should be taken to assess the support worker holistically when working alongside of them and supporting them in the workplace.
View the Skills for Care Care Certificate Framework - Assessor document for excellent guidance on assessment.
View the Hints and Tips for assessing the Care Certificate in General Practice
You can also download the shorter Care Certificate Assessor Guidelines from Skills for Care.
Further instructions for assessors are also available as part of the Care Certificate e-learning module.
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One of the most frequently raised questions in regard to work place learning is “How much evidence is enough (sufficient) to meet the Standard?‟
The evidence is sufficient when the assessor is confident that the learner has met the Standard. This decision is a judgement of the individual assessor.
Assessment evidence can include but is not restricted to:
Observation records
Oral or written answers to questions
Small project such as a poster presentation
Multiple choice questions
Record of simulated activity
NB Certificates of Attendance, attendance on study days or e-learning without assessment of what has been learnt is not evidence toward achievement of the Care Certificate.
EXAMPLE OF ASSESSMENT
7.2B Demonstrate that the privacy and dignity of the individual is maintained at all times being in line with the person’s individual needs and preferences when providing personal care. This could include:
Making sure doors, screens or curtains are in the correct position
Getting permission before entering someone’s personal space
knocking before entering the room
Ensuring any clothing, hospital gowns etc. are positioned correctly
The individual is positioned appropriately e.g. the individual is not exposing any part of their body they would not want others to be able to see
The above requires the learner to demonstrate that they can meet the requirement – it gives examples of how they may be able to demonstrate this but it’s not a requirement that they demonstrate each of the examples nor that they demonstrate they are able to do this on any specified number of occasions before they have met the standard. The assessor will need to consider a range of factors and may feel that the learner has met the standard after observing them across one span of duty or they may feel they need to carry out further observations to be confident that a judgement can be made.
To complete the full training programme, learners must demonstrate all Care Certificate standards and behaviours in practice.
This needs to be recorded within a workbook called the Practice Assessment Document (PAD).
Click to download the PAD below.
<BUTTON TO DOWNLOAD>
This is the NCL recommended workbook, however, there are multiple versions of the PAD available online.
You can also view the Skills for Care version of the Workbook here.
All performance required to meet the Standards must be assessed and no evidence of prior experience is allowed.
The exception to this is Basic Life Support. Depending on the role and the Level of Basic Life Support training the individual is required to have it may be appropriate to recognise prior learning where this can be clearly evidenced and is within the recommended refresher period.
The Certificate must be awarded by the employer who takes overall responsibility that the HCA has met the required standards.
The Care Certificate should not be signed until the new healthcare support or care worker has completed all 15 of the standards.
NB External learning providers who may have supported the training delivery must not sign and issue the Certificate.
Once the PAD is complete and the assessor is satisfied that the learner has the knowledge required for each standard, the actual "Certificate" can be downloaded (and personalised with name and practice details) from Certificate template for the Care Certificate Standards | Skills for Health. It is strongly recommended that the health or adult social care organisation uses the national Care Certificate template. A PDF and Word version is available, and the employer can choose to add their own logo onto the latter if they wish. The certificate should be given to the health or adult social care worker. The employer may choose to keep a copy of the certificate.
Who should do the Care Certificate?
Healthcare Support Workers / Health Care Assistants / Assistant Practitioners / any individual giving support to clinical roles in the NHS where there is any direct contact with patients.
Does the Care Certificate replace staff induction?
No. The Care Certificate is part of a structured induction but does not replace all of the learning required for staff induction. As well as the Care Certificate standards new staff will be expected to have information, knowledge and competences specific to the environment in which care will be provided.
Is the achievement of the Care Certificate based only on knowledge?
No, to achieve the Care Certificate the person must acquire knowledge and demonstrate competence in all 15 standards.
Who can assess whether a worker has achieved the required competences?
The assessment (including observing someone and assessing their competence) must be undertaken by someone who is 'occupationally competent', which means someone who has the necessary experience to judge whether the learner has demonstrated the required competences. The guidance does not specify that someone delivering the training and carrying out assessment needs a specified qualification. The employer must be satisfied that the assessor is competent to assess whether the worker meets the standards of the Care Certificate. The assessor can be a GP, a Nurse, or a senior and experienced HCA.
How long does it take to complete the Care Certificate?
For a full-time member of staff, the amount of time taken to achieve the outcomes of the Care Certificate should be around 12 weeks.
The time needed will vary depending upon a range of factors, including; the hours worked by the learner, teaching methods chosen, previous educational achievement, resources and opportunities for assessment, and the availability of assessors.
However, as it is the learner's “induction” all colleagues are encouraged to support and offer the learner as many opportunities to gather the evidence and discuss the contents of the portfolio as possible.
How much evidence is enough (sufficient) to meet the Standard?
The evidence is sufficient when the assessor is confident that the learner has met the Standard. This decision is a judgement of the individual assessor.
Other resources:
Information for learners from Skills for Care
FAQ for Health and Social Care Professionals from Skills for Care
Care certificate toolkit - NHSE/WT&E (formerly HEE)
Designed to act as a guide to individuals starting to implement the Care Certificate in their area, includes:
Implementation timeline
Care Certificate case studies - NHSE/WT&E (formerly HEE)
The Care Certificate is expected to give everyone the confidence that health and care professionals have the same introductory skills, knowledge and behaviours to provide compassionate, safe and high-quality care and support in their own particular workplace setting. Read and hear from those who have done the Care Certificate and learn about their experiences.
Find out more about the HCA role - click here.
Read about other available training for HCAs here.
View the Healthcare support workers handbook on Learning Hub Resource details