News regarding EEAST’s recent Ofsted inspection

Transparent EEAST crest

Ofsted undertook an inspection of our apprenticeship provision within EEAST on 10 June.

Whilst Ofsted recognised that we have made improvements in addressing concerns raised by the Care Quality Commission in 2020, they have identified an ongoing risk to our apprenticeship students being exposed to poor behaviour and feeling less able to raise concerns. For this reason, the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has withdrawn funding for our level 3 and 4 apprenticeship learning. This means that although we will continue to employ apprentices and provide clinical training, our status as an education provider will end.

This means that education training for apprentices who are employed by EEAST will have to transfer to another training provider.  We are working closely with Health Education England (HEE) to source an alternative provider.

This does not affect university placements at EEAST which will continue.

Apprentices’ clinical supervision and placements will continue to take place with us here at EEAST, alongside university based placements.

Who is impacted?

The decision impacts solely on those apprentices employed and training with EEAST on a AEMT or AECSW course and does not affect the university placement provision. If you are a student from another training provider it doesn’t directly impact on you.

We value our apprentices and all our learners, and EEAST is committed to improving the quality of our clinical learning environment so we can offer the best possible education and training moving forward. We are working with HEE to learn how we can improve our education and training offer for the future. This will include HEE continuing with a planned visit in the coming weeks to assess the learning environment for our practice placements, which will ask all students about their experience at EEAST.

For further information and support

Our priority is to support all our learners and colleagues within the education and training department through this difficult time of change. I want all our apprentices to feel supported and so I recorded this video

Many of you will have questions and we will be working hard to answer them over the next few days. We will provide as much information as possible through:

  • Regular updates on Need to Know 
  • Frequently asked questions Ofsted FAQs 
  • The EEAST apprentice support line has been opened to support all our apprentices. It is open from Monday to Friday 9:00am – 5.00pm and the contact details have been sent to all apprentices who are impacted.
  • For all other staff the weekly ‘We are EEAST’ all staff briefing will take place at 4pm, on Thursday 15 July.
  • You can also get further information and support from your line manager, EEAST wellbeing or the Employee Assistance Program on 0808 196 2374.

We hope that you will be sensitive to the impact on our colleagues and learners.

Kind regards

Tom Davis
Interim CEO

Published 13th July 2021