The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt made the announcement last week in a newsletter from permanent secretary Una O'Brien to all DH civil servants.
“I want the Department of Health to be the first in Whitehall where every civil servant knows what it is like on the frontline,” he said. “I know a lot of people already have this experience, but I want to go further. I think there should be a lot of flexibility over what people choose to do, but I think this is a real opportunity.”
The scheme will see civil servants of all ranks in the department join NHS staff from next month in order to experience how services are delivered.
It is a response to the report by Robert Francis QC into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, which found up to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily. The Francis Inquiry also suggested officials were disconnected from what is happening in the NHS.
A spokeswoman for the DH said the placements would last one day initially but this would eventually be increased to five days every year. Placements will depend on which area of the department civil servants work in.
Emphasis on front-line experience by government officials was also prevalent in the Civil Service Reform Plan. CSW reported in June last year how chapter four of the plan made a pledge to “ensure that permanent secretaries have experience in various roles and departments, and ‘over time’ to boost the number with backgrounds in delivery or management rather than policymaking”.