The Next Step for Health and Care Informatics: the new FEDIP Charter

At this year‘s Rewired the Year of the Digital Profession has been launched. As part of our commitment to the year, we are delighted to announce the next step in the development of FEDIP: the launch of the FEDIP Charter.

The Charter solidifies the plans to create a formally recognised and supported profession for all health and care informatics practitioners.

The Charter

The Charter sets out the following:

1. We will promote recognition of the skills and capabilities of the professions that make up the informatics workforce, and of the benefits that they deliver to health and care.

2. We will demonstrate our commitment to success through diversity by supporting broad and inclusive pathways into the health and care informatics profession by working with the professional bodies and with employers.

3. We will promote personal commitment to continuing professional development (CPD) and ensure that CPD is recognised and valued by employers, advocating for increased investment in professional development opportunities and recognition.

4. We will together accredit educational programmes for health and care informaticians across the professional bodies within FEDIP.

5. We will support informaticians to extend their skills through their career pathway, ensuring provision of forward-looking training and development opportunities.

6. We will work with employers to advocate the need for accessible and flexible pathways for progression.

7. We will promote the value of FEDIP registration as an indicator of skills, capabilities and fitness to practice.

The Federation for Informatics Professionals in Health and Care (FEDIP) has launched the FEDIP Charter, which affirms plans to further professionalize the health and care informatics profession and support practitioners in their continued commitment to development.

The Charter is based on the feedback received from practitioners during the nationwide consultation conducted by FEDIP in collaboration with NHS in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The health and care informatics community provided a wealth of feedback and data which has allowed FEDIP to gain a deeper understanding about the current landscape of the profession.

The consultation report provided excellent insights into the current issues that health and care informatics professionals are facing and their thoughts on the future of the profession. The full text can be read here. From this consultation, four main issues were identified as being most important to health and care informatics professionals:

• Career Guidance and Help

• Networking and Community Opportunities

• Continuous Professional Development Support

• Simplifying the Landscape

To address these issues, the FEDIP Charter was formed to show the organization’s commitment to the profession and give a broad roadmap of FEDIP’s priorities for the future.

To that end FEDIP is supported by six professional bodies representing a diverse range of health and care informatics specialities:

“As the Chartered Institute for Library, Information and Knowledge Management professionals, CILIP is pleased to support the new FEDIP Charter. The development of this Charter signals our strong commitment to work with partner organisations across health and care to give everyone working in health informatics a clear and accessible route for recognition and career progression.”

- The Chartered Library and Information Association (CILIP)

"The Health & Care sector's ambition to be more data-driven can only properly be realised by prioritising the vital role that an accredited data and information professionals community must play in delivering it. FEDIP's Charter sets out an ambition that professional bodies recognise and want to adopt to develop their respective specialisms within the data and information community. We contributed to the creation of the Charter and would encourage the sector to fund the means to deliver its aims. We strongly encourage the sector to adopt the Charter and to put its principles into working practice for the benefit of both the public and practitioners."

- Society for innovation, technology and modernisation (SOCITM)

“As a founder member of FEDIP, and instrumental in setting out the Charter, we are both delighted and proud that this staff group are being given the opportunity to have their professionalism made visible and promoted. It adds the same credence for Health Informatics staff that our clinical colleagues have. Information drives everything that we do in the healthcare service, and this Charter recognises the importance of the roles that these staff bring in supporting safe clinical care.”

- Institute of Health Records and Information Management, IHRIM

“The Faculty of Clinical Informatics welcomes the new charter. It will help the member organisations of FEDIP and all of our other partners across health and social care to collaborate better than ever before and to improve the quality of care offered to patients and service users. Employers will be able to work more consistently. Professionals will be able to identify the skills they need in their education and training and in their development throughout their careers. Diversity will be encouraged and supported. And there’s more to come.”

- The Faculty of Clinical Informatics, FCI

“The Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA) as the Professional Body for Health and Care Analysts are supporting the FEDIP charter, the charter re-emphasises core aim of AphA to ultimately achieving professional recognition for our members, and to drive up the quality and applicability of robust analytics as an aid to evidence based decision making in a modern health and care system.”

- Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts, AphA

“BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT is proud to be part of the collaboration of professional bodies within FEDIP, and fully endorses and supports the FEDIP Charter. The development of the Charter is a decisive step in laying out the intention to create a recognised profession. Technology underpins the safe and trusted clinical services the NHS provides. It is imperative the people delivering and assuring the reliability of that technology have the necessary recognition and the profession they deserve. The Charter defines the importance of the specialised skills and competencies of informatics professionals and highlights the necessity of the role they play in a safer NHS.”

- BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

FEDIP is pleased to announce that these commitments to the profession have received the full support from both our professional bodies and from leading professionals around the UK.

“I’m delighted to support the charter that has been developed across the informatics profession. It’s a vital next step in the recognition of the skills and competencies of all those working in digital in health and care. I’m particularly pleased to see the emphasis on professional registration and the focus on CPD and making sure that accredited resources are available to develop all of our people.”

- Helen Thomas, CEO Digital Health and Care Wales

“Scotland is fully supportive and very excited by the launch of the FEDIP charter. The opportunities this will provide for professionals supporting informatics across services and education will provide a significant and welcome boost to professional development for individuals working in this vital activity”.

-Christopher Wroath, Director of Digital for NHS Education for Scotland

“This Charter from FEDIP is a welcome and important step to acknowledge the impact that digital, data and technology and the professionals that work in these areas is having and can have in the future on health and care in the UK. The growing significance of professionalisation of the digital workforce in health and care has been very welcome over the last number of years, and COVID has seen rapid developments and adoption of new channels and approaches for delivery of services. As we step forwards post-pandemic the importance of professional registration, its associated regulation and career and skill development are particularly important - I look forward to continuing our involvement in the charter and moving it forward.”

-Dan West, CDIO, Northern Ireland

FEDIP is very much looking forward to the year ahead, with plans to create a thriving community and go-to space for health and informatics to learn, record CPD and network with colleagues.

To learn more about FEDIP and how you can start your journey to professional registration, please do download our brochure here for more information.

About FEDIP

The Federation for Informatics Professionals' mission is to represent all Health and Care Informatics Professionals and help them to achieve professionalisation through professional registration and the unification of the various Health and Care Informatics communities of interest through partnership and collaboration. We are creating a professional framework of unified standards or taxonomy, including role definitions, to provide assurance to employees, employers and the Informatics workforce.