Health & Care Innovation Hub

A separate business-focused space and accompanying support programme will stimulate economic growth through growing the healthcare business sector. Both elements of the Hub’s activities will contribute to driving up the quality of care in St Helens, ensuring local people get the support they need from the town’s health and social care providers. In summary the Health and Care Innovation Hub will consist of two elements:

Skills Academy – Provision of new or upgraded education floorspace, to deliver additional / enhanced training (and associated engagement and careers information, advice, and guidance) to enable more local people to enter and progress their careers in the health and social care (H&SC) sector.

Business Connect – The provision of dedicated working and meeting spaces, with associated support for businesses with a health and social care focus to co-locate, network, and collaborate, in order to accelerate growth within this sector. This will be delivered through the reconfiguration and refurbishment of premises within St Helens Chamber.

Skills Academy

Strategy Objective – To develop a strong and multiskilled workforce by offering training, qualifications, experience, and personalised coaching across a variety of roles within health and social care, as well as guaranteed interviews with key organisations in the sector.

The Skills Academy brings together all the key H&SC stakeholders, who will work jointly to identify training needs and respond to them by encouraging new learners to enter the sector and existing workers to increase their skills, on an on-going basis. A management and coordination team will be responsible for promoting careers in the sector to:

young people,

people not currently in work,

potential career changers

The programmes will particularly be targeting the unemployed, economically inactive, care leavers and people within St Helens’ more deprived communities, to engage them with the opportunities which the sector offers, both in entry level roles and to progress their careers.

The Skills Academy will coordinate training across providers and employers. This will ensure that new learners benefit from extensive work experience opportunities and placements, enhancing their skills and increasing their job readiness on completion of their learning. The coordinated approach will ensure the existing workforce are offered opportunities to increase their skills and progress within the workplace, with clear career paths available. This will expand and future-proof the health and social care workforce in St Helens with a constant stream of potential employees to meet demands, not only for primary, secondary, and social care settings, but also for enabling roles within Health and Social Care such as IT.

Business Connect

Strategy Objective – To harness a culture of collaboration, research and development between the Health & Social Care sector and local business (SMEs, social enterprises) by providing a space to develop and explore opportunities, coupled with business specialist advice and support.

The Business Connect initiative will provide a professional space where local businesses and H&SC organisations’ procurement staff can be brought together to network, discuss opportunities, and collaborate. Provision of dedicated space including a Boardroom, events room and meeting rooms / workspaces will provide a professional environment where businesses working with and supplying to the health and social care market can come together, network and collaborate, providing a focus for the growth of a new healthcare cluster within St Helens.

As the delivery of H&SC services evolves, with a transition to integrated and partnership approaches and an increased focus on wellness and prevention of ill health, the Hub will provide specialist business support for all businesses in St Helens working in the health and social care sector, to help them maximise the opportunities that the new ways of working present.