Careermakers

An NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) is a qualification that assesses someone’s competence (that is the skills, knowledge and understanding they have) principally in a work situation. NVQs are based on the national occupational standards that describe the level and breadth of performance expected of individuals who’s work involves Health and Social Care practices. This NVQ is based on the national occupational standards developed by Skills for Health, Skills for Care, Care Council for Wales, Northern Ireland Social Care Council and the Scottish Social Services Council. They are the government approved bodies who set the standards for the Health and Social Care Sector.
From Level 3 onwards this qualification has 2 specialist routes; these routes have been developed to allow candidates to demonstrate competence in specialism that relate to the context of their work role. The specialist routes are the Adult pathway and the Children and Young People pathway.

The decision to register for a specific pathway has to be made before, or at the time of, registration. The nature of the N/SVQ candidate’s job role will determine the sources of evidence they are likely to use and therefore the most suitable pathway and option units to follow.

Qualification Aims

The aim of this qualification is to recognise your skills and competences in the workplace. This qualification is about direct care, where the focus is hands-on care (doing things for service users) and enablement care, where the focus is on the development and maintenance of the service users independence (supporting and enabling service users to do things for themselves). You will usually be delivering care in support of, and under the direction of a colleague who is accountable in the area of practice, although this person may not always be in the immediate vicinity while you are working with clients. You will be expected to seek support, advice or assistance if you are unclear about what to do, or if unusual or untoward situations arise (for example deterioration in the client’s condition).

Target market

This NVQ is designed to reflect the work of candidates who undertake Health and Social Care activities working with service users/carers.

Entry requirements
This NVQ is a work-orientated qualification and is suitable for those who undertake Health and Social practices in their work. This is open to candidate of any age, of either gender and there are no entries to barriers on grounds of race, creed or previous academic attainment or learning.

What are the benefits of this NVQ?

Employees will benefit from:

• A clearer understanding of their responsibility within their organisation
• The opportunity to develop new skills
• The recognition of existing skills

Health and Social Care

Employers will benefit from:

• Improved staff performance and motivation
• Improvements in the quality of service to services users
• The opportunity to ensure levels of care, are to national standard

How is this NVQ assessed?

Like all NVQs, this qualification is competence-based. This means that it is linked to a person’s ability to competently perform a range of tasks connected with their work. To gain this NVQ a candidate must achieve the level of competence described in the NVQ units of competence.