Recording Apprenticeships in ESR
NHS organisations have been able to enter apprenticeship information into Health Education England’s National Apprenticeship Monitoring System (NAM) since December 2015.
During this time, the NHS ESR Central Team has been collaborating with Health Education England and NHS Employers on an enhancement to enable apprenticeship information to be recorded within ESR alongside other employment information. The introduction of the apprenticeship levy in April 2017 increased the focus on apprentices in the NHS and heightened the need for ESR to provide a solution that enables adequate recording, and therefore reporting of apprenticeship data.
Subject to successful deployment, this enhancement will be implemented in Release 39 (June 2018) following the removal of NAM, and therefore should be used as the main method for NHS organisations to record apprenticeship details going forward.
Health Education England wrote to NAM contacts at the beginning of April to confirm the decommissioning of NAM with effect from 30th April 2018.
The Enhancement
A new Extra Information Type (EIT) form will be created at assignment level enabling organisations to record key information in relation to apprentices.
The form includes the following fields:
- Apprenticeship Level
- Framework/Standard
- Status
- Start Date
- Proposed End Date
- Actual End Date
- Main Training Provider (UKPRN)
- EPA Centre
- Apprenticeship Type
All of these data items will be reportable through ESR Business Intelligence.
Further details on the functionality will be included in the guide to enhancements document for Release 39.
The Benefits
- It will now be possible to report on employees who have been specifically employed as an apprentice as well as those employees who are undertaking an apprenticeship whilst continuing in their existing post. These scenarios will be differentiated by the ‘Apprenticeship Type’ field.
- Holding the apprenticeship information within ESR enables the data to be linked to further workforce information and therefore opens up significant reporting potential , for example:
- Equality Characteristics
- Salary Information
- Reason for Leaving
- Future career (i.e. progression following completion of Apprenticeship)
- Apprenticeship information will be transferred through the IAT process enabling organisations to inherit historical apprenticeship information for a new employee.
- Recording apprenticeship details through the EIT form allows organisations to use the job role field more effectively to record a job role more relevant to the work being undertaken by the apprentice, rather than using the generic job roles of ‘Apprentice’ across the various staff groups. The ‘Apprentice’ job roles will therefore be removed following a period during which more suitable job roles will have been adopted. Further details will follow.
- Organisations can utilise BI to assist in meeting the statutory reporting requirements in relation to apprenticeships set out by the Department for Education. This includes the need to report on apprentices as a proportion of your overall trust headcount.
- Regional and national organisations will be able to report on NHS apprentice information through the ESR system reducing the burden on organisations to provide this data via separate systems and submissions.
Health Education England has been working with ESR for some time now to ensure that the apprentice data could be entered into the ESR system. We are pleased that this has now become a reality with the launch of the apprentice fields in ESR. We encourage everyone to take advantage of this addition by adding the apprentice information in ESR. By doing this, it will give the NHS a better picture of apprenticeships across the country as well as allow local trusts a central place in which to store and manage apprentice data.
Kirk Lower, National Lead for Apprenticeships and Talent for Care at HEE
Next Steps
Following the implementation of the enhancement into ESR, organisations are strongly encouraged to use the new form to record details for all current and future apprenticeships.
Organisations also have the ability to record historical apprenticeship information should they choose, however it should be noted that the list of values are based on current framework/standards and EPA Centres.
For further information please contact your regional NHS ESR Functional Advisors or Account Managers.