Nurses will have to spend time as healthcare assistants as part of a measures to be unveiled by ministers in response to the Stafford hospital inquiry.
More compassionate care is needed in the NHS, ministers will concede.
It comes after the inquiry criticised the system for putting corporate interest ahead of patients.
Hundreds of people died needlessly because of neglect and abuse from 2005 to 2008.
The inquiry said failings from the top to the bottom of the NHS meant the public had been “betrayed”.
In total there were 290 recommendations for reforming the system.
Ministers are not expected to respond individually to each one.
Instead, they will spell out a series of steps they are taking to answer the main themes that arose from the inquiry.
Among these will be details about how compassion on the front line could be improved.
‘Hands-on’
Ministers believe placing student nurses on wards as healthcare assistants for up to a year will help them develop the caring skills required, before going on to do a degree.
New minimum training standards and a code of conduct for healthcare assistants is also likely to be unveiled, although this looks like it will fall short of the registration scheme recommended by the public inquiry.
Speaking ahead of his announcement to Parliament, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said encouraging compassionate care needed to be more of a priority.
“Front-line, hands-on caring experience and values need to be equal with academic training,” he said.
“These measures are about recruiting all staff with the right values and giving them the training they need to do their job properly, so that patients are treated with compassion.”
But Peter Walsh, of Action against Medical Accidents, said introducing a legal duty of candour, which was also demanded by the public inquiry, had the potential to have the biggest impact.
Such a duty would require the NHS to be honest when it makes a mistake.
Mr Walsh said: “For over 60 years the NHS has done no more than pay lip service to the fundamental principle that patients and their families should be told the truth when there has been an error which causes harm.
“Whilst frowning upon cover-ups, the system has effectively tolerated them.
“This culture of cover-up and denial is a cancer eating away at the NHS.
“The legally enforceable duty of candour will help change that culture and represents the biggest advance in patient safety and patients rights in the history of the NHS.”
