How can English and Maths skills help?
English skills include the ability to write, read, speak, listen, and respond. Staff use these skills to:
- Communicate with people who need care and support, colleagues, and other health care professionals
- Write and understand care plans
- Understand and follow risk assessments
- Fill in an accident form
- Complete a review of a care plan
Maths’s skills include the ability to understand and use numbers. Staff use these skills to:
- Record fluid intake
- Measure medication
- Calculate body mass index (BMI)
- Plan staff rotas and understand wage slips
- Manage stock levels
- Calculate budgets
Why are functional skills important?
Functional Skills are crucial to ensure your staff provide high quality care and support. The impact without these skills could mean they:
- Struggle to read and understand procedures and policies
- Struggle to communicate with people who need care and support
- Don’t always take accurate measurements or readings leading to mistakes
- Are unable to write clearly and accurately when completing care plans, leaving handover notes, or filling in charts
- Can’t make best use of information and resources available on the internet
- Find it difficult to achieve vocational qualifications
Table of the different awards
| Functional Skills level | GCSE Equivalent |
| Entry level 1 | Below GCSE |
| Entry levels 2 & 3 | Below GCSE |
| Level 1 | Grades 1-3 (fail) |
| Level 2 | Grades 4-9 (pass) |
Embedding functional skills in your workplace culture
During your induction process
- Assess ability on functional skills, use Skills for Care toolkits to help assessment
- Identify needs
- Career conversations, support to develop functional skills before signing on to further education
Supervision
- Have regular conversations about support with functional skills
- Career conversations – e.g. opportunities to progress onto apprenticeships