This chapter continues the book’s theme concerning partnerships and integration, and
focuses on the implications for the clinical workforce of service integration within sexual health.
Written by three clinicians from a range of sexual health disciplines, based at the Sandyford
Initiative - Lorraine Forster, Dr Urszula Bankowska, Martin Murchie – it reviews the clinical
environment before integrations took place and the training needs of specialities and disciplines,
and the role of recent government policy in influencing the shape of the sexual health workforce.
The chapter describes the new skills and competencies required by medical and clinical disciplines
to deliver integrated sexual health services. It suggests examples of good practice to effect that
change from nursing, medical and health advising perspectives. The responsibility of national
training agencies in supporting staff training, such as NHS Education Scotland (NES), Royal
College of Nursing (RCN), the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health (FSRH) and the British
Association of Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) is described.
The chapter concludes that there are a number of challenges ahead that will impact on sexual health
care and maintaining a skilled workforce, including the availability of budgets to continue
developing sexual health services, responding to changing population health needs and workforce
issues. The authors argue that strong networks, professional identities and accredited clinical skills
can only help to ensure that the sexual health workforce continues to make a valuable contribution
to public health in Scotland.
