In this blog, Dr John Downey, Lecturer at the University of Plymouth, discusses an NHS England supported project exploring how pre-registration programmes embed the priorities of the 10 Year Plan.

The current model of healthcare in high income countries is unsustainable due to the prevalence of long term conditions, the ageing population, workforce shortages, and emphasis on acute care. Lord Darzi published an independent report highlighting the grave condition of the NHS and the necessary reforms to ensure its survival. Three significant shifts from existing ways of working were encouraged by Darzi which have ramifications on how educator’s train the healthcare professionals of the future, notedly a shift from hospital to community, sickness to prevention, and analogue to digital. In 2025, the 10 Year Plan pledged to achieve the three shifts and formalised them as part of the NHS mandate. Achieving these NHS shifts will be partly reliant on a modernised workforce to translate strategy into routine practice. Likewise, there is limited reference in the plan to workforce competencies or professional standards to underpin the significant changes required to deliver the three shifts, or guidance for educational institutions in terms of developing education to prepare future professionals for the transformational changes outlined in the plan.

This work will contribute to the actualisation of the strategy by developing coherent learning domains for each NHS shift and how educators can integrate the NHS priorities into healthcare education. This work has a link to the NHS educational reform directorate who are interested in the outcomes and socialising the outputs with the aim to influence future policy and practice.

The research aims to understand how the 10 Year Plan shifts are currently integrated into the curricula of English pre‑registration nursing, midwifery, and allied health profession programmes. This project comprises three connected phases:

• A review of professional competency frameworks/standards to consolidate essential learning domains relevant to the three shifts.
• A descriptive analysis of current practice in pre-registration curricula through surveys and opt in interviews.
• A series of innovative case studies relating to the three shifts collected through a funding competition.

We invite educators responsible for programme or module design to complete a short survey. We welcome responses from all pre‑registration nursing, midwifery, and allied health profession programmes across England. Please access the survey via the link.

Three funding awards of up to £10,000 are also available for pre-registration programmes across nursing, midwifery, and allied health professions. Projects must relate to one or more of the NHS three shifts and aim to enhance the student experience. Applications may include evaluations, monitoring activities, or analyses that reflect on recent innovations. Established educational elements such as clinical skills simulation, e-learning platforms, and standard curricula for specialist roles (e.g. community nursing), fall outside the scope of this funding. Please submit a two page A4 proposal using size 11 font to john.downey@plymouth.ac.uk by Feb 12^th, 2025, at 5pm and structure proposals using the following headings:

1. Local Background
2. Relevance to the NHS Long Term Plan
3. Innovation
4. Methodology/Data Collection
5. Impact for Learning
6. Deliverability and Costing