Workforce planning and design of delivery models need to ensure an adequate staffing resource and ongoing supply to ensure people, communities and population health care needs are met. This requires employing: the right people, with the right skills, working in the right place, at the right time.
The Northern Ireland pre and post graduate education commissioning framework aims to support this by incorporating strategic planning to meet the transformation agenda. At the 31st March 2025 there were 29,966 Nurses and Midwives on the NMC register in Northern Ireland. Understanding the workforce learning and development needs is essential to support future service delivery models.
As the health and social care system reforms in response to evolving patient and population needs, technology and pharmaceutical advancements, the multi-professional workforce needs to develop knowledge and skills to work within existing and new models of care. To ensure the availability of a workforce pipeline education and training must be targeted as part of strategic and operational short-term and long-term workforce planning. This process must facilitate a workforce with: the right skills to undertake the wide range of required roles, across all relevant services, that are available to work as part of the interprofessional team when needed.
Delivering Care Framework
The Department of Health has published a refreshed Delivering Care Policy Framework, providing updated guidance to support safe, effective and sustainable staffing across nursing and midwifery in Northern Ireland. The refreshed Framework offers a regionally consistent, evidence‑based approach to determining staffing levels and skill mix across all fields of nursing and midwifery, strengthening workforce and workload planning for Health and Social Care Trusts and commissioners.
First published in 2014, the Framework has been updated to reflect significant changes in population needs, service delivery models and system pressures. The refresh places a strong emphasis on clear accountability from ward to board, improved reporting mechanisms, shared responsibility, and the use of evidence to inform decision‑making. It also supports ongoing health and social care transformation and prepares the system for any future safe staffing legislation.
Click here to download the Delivering Care Policy Framework.