General practitioners receive a trainers grant where they undertake training responsibilities. We are working with key stakeholders to support trainers for all health professionals. Employers arrange locum cover where they feel it is necessary. Ward Environment Budgets were introduced on 1 October last year. The budgets can be spent on whatever the ward sisters and charge nurses that manage the ward consider will best enhance and humanise patient care or improve the working lives of staff.
All wards can have a budget.
No types of ward are excluded. In the vast majority of cases it will be clear which units within a hospital are a ward. At the margins there may however be some doubt whether a particular unit constitutes a ward for the purposes of these budgets. Where there is doubt, the hospital managers will decide how a ward is defined within their hospital with a view to delivering the spirit of this initiative. The allocation of resources to employ locum cover for NHS staff undertaking development training is a matter for NHS employers to determine in the light of local service priorities.