School of Health Sciences
The School Mission Statement
To engage with health care research, scholarship, teaching and learning that is of the highest possible standard, quality and value to service users, practitioners and stakeholders whilst maintaining language and cultural competence relevant to local, national and international partners..
Aims of the School
- To promote a high quality of teaching and learning experience for both students and staff, whilst adopting the most appropriate teaching and learning - methods that offers students choice, flexibility and inter-professional opportunities.
To prepare and support healthcare practitioners to engage with lifelong learning and reflective practice that will promote high standards in evidence based practice.
- To work in partnership with service users, health care providers and agencies mainly in the local region of Wales, but also nationally and internationally on health care research, education and scholarship.
- To engage with scholarship and research applied to health care policy and practice, in order to evaluate, develop and wherever possible improve professional practice.
- To instill language and cultural competence in healthcare practitioners.
- To embed language and cultural awareness in healthcare research and practice and respond sensitively to the language needs of Welsh speakers.
Information for Health Organisations and Service Managers
The School of Health Sciences has a long tradition of partnership-working with NHS and other employers, and patient and public representatives to design undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmes that have impact for students and services alike. However we recognise that in some circumstances more bespoke, or tailored programmes are required to address particular challenges in healthcare.
Healthcare systems are complex, and improvement challenges are usually multifaceted. Our practical experience of working with professionals and health services, together with our world-leading research in healthcare improvement, means that we can help service managers identify ‘sweet spots’ for change, and evidence-based solutions. In this way, managers can commission a range of tailored support interventions, alongside our education and training programmes, that can lead to real and sustained impact.
Based on our experience of providing workforce and organisational development programmes within the context of professional practice, we are pleased to offer the following principles which might help NHS managers identify more bespoke solutions to modern healthcare challenges:
- Integrate workforce and organisational development – this will ensure that gains in staff knowledge and skills from education and training can be utilised effectively.
- Use different incentive mechanisms to generate buy-in from staff to encourage engagement in, and impacts from investment in workforce development programmes.
- Draw on the full range of improvement solutions - no one ‘magic bullet’ can deliver complex change. These solutions might include traditional taught courses, coaching and support for service managers, leadership development, skills development, facilitation of system and service re-design, supporting professional behaviour change, and support for organisational interventions such as clinical supervision, benchmarking and peer networking.
- Make use of developments in inter-professional practice – this will shift the focus to where knowledge and skills, rather than professional roles, need to be situated within services.
- Consistently use an organisational framework for integrating workforce and service development – this will enable your organisation to continue to learn about ‘what works’ in improving healthcare.
If you would like to explore the potential for bespoke solutions to healthcare challenges, then please do contact the School to arrange a discussion. Please contact Gill Roberts on 01248383544 gillian.roberts@bangor.ac.uk.
