Congratulations to Dorothy Keane on her appointment as a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year 2018 Honours List, for her services to radiography. Dorothy is the clinical lead for Health Education England’s elearning for healthcare Image Interpretation programme.
For more information about the Image Interpretation programme please visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/image-interpretation/
The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, 2016 highlighted that people with mental health problems have poorer physical health than the general population, often they are unable to access the physical healthcare they need and experience unnecessary health inequalities. People with a serious mental illness (SMI) accessing mental health services on an in/outpatient basis and settings do not always have their physical health needs identified, assessed, monitored, managed appropriately or receive timely information and support they need, to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Figures obtained from NHS England in 2016 found more than 8,000 serious incidents were reported by mental health trusts in England the previous year. There has been a steady increase in the numbers of incidents recorded by 58 mental health trusts in England from 6,074 to 8,139 from 2012-2015.
Some of the real challenges mental health trusts experience are competing training course priorities, poor uptake of training, unable to release staff to attend and/or deliver training sessions, trying to fit in training into an already packed programme. UCLPartners commissioned by Health Education England, north, central and east London (NCEL) conducted a needs assessment in 2014 across mental health settings through structured interviews focus groups, questionnaires and surveys to understand the training needs and requirements of staff in a mental health setting.
Key findings from the needs assessment report in relation to current existing and future training needs showed;
Mental health and mental health and multidisciplinary staff who undertook the needs assessment, highlighted an urgent need for a physical health awareness training every 6 months; preferably of a minimum half day, targeted, face to face training sessions twice a year. The challenge was to provide appropriate and relevant physical health awareness training, resources and delivery modes for mental health staff that met their day to day operational, clinical needs and management of patients with complex care.
With the main emphasis on upskilling mental health professionals, UCLPartners facilitated the development of Breaking Down the Barriers (BDtB), the co-creation and delivery of six free, adaptable physical awareness training modules for use across mental health settings and higher education institutes. BDtB physical health training aims to increase overall awareness, improve early identification, assessment management, timely sign-posting and referrals of patients with complex mental and physical health needs. BDtB physical awareness training has been created for delivery in bite sizes, classroom Training is through a mixture of presentations, practical exercises, videos tutorials, case studies, scenarios, quizzes including discussions.
Dr Sergio Sawh, Emergency Medicine Specialist, Registrar & ED simulation fellow at University College Hospital London, has delivered the highest number of training sessions to clinical and non-clinical staffacross mental health trusts within the NCEL geographical region. Following the success of the training, there has also been a high demand for training from other localities, most recently from South Kensington & Chelsea mental health centre. BDtB training simulation scenarios include the management of the collapsed patient, over-sedation and the practical use of Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation (SBAR) communication tool.
Seeing results: what attendees have said following physical awareness training by Dr Sergio Sawh:
“This type of training needs to happen regularly and everyone who is patient-facing should have this training.”
“Training was very eye-opening and made me realise just how much more there is to learn if I am to become confident in managing a patient who has collapsed in my care and at my trust. However, I now feel that I am capable.”
“I enjoyed the scenarios and practical involvement, it has highlighted areas in my practice area where we require essential equipment to deal with medical emergencies.”
“Overall, it’s been a great learning experience as we sometimes get rusty as psychiatrists.”
The diagram below shows pre-and post measurements on knowledge, confidence and practical skill levels of mental health and multidisciplinary staff who attended training.
Mental health professionals and multidisciplinary staff are in unique positions to help and empower people with an SMI to improve their physical health. BDtB physical health awareness resources aim to support staff by building on existing skills and knowledge to help reduce risk factors known to adversely affect the physical health of people with an SMI.
Ronke Adejolu, Programme Manager, UCLPartners said “Breaking Down the Barriers is proving reciprocal and collaborative training approach can help build and develop capabilities of staff, hereby reducing serious incidences across mental health trusts. “
To access BDtB downloadable training resources please visit; http://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/breaking-downthe-barriers/. For more information, contact Ellen Nelson Ellen.Nelson@uclpartners.com
Health Education England (HEE) has updated and refreshed the elearning training sessions for the ten core statutory and mandatory topics as defined in the UK Core Skills Training Framework for the health and social care workforce.
The elearning sessions, which can be accessed free of charge via HEE’s elearning for healthcare (elfh) hub and via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), have been updated with content provided by subject matter experts across the ten topics which include:
Alan Ryan, Director of National Programmes, HEE said: “The updated suite of core statutory and mandatory elearning sessions will ensure consistency in quality and the definition and delivery of such training. This will also make the completion of statutory and mandatory training more efficient thanks to the centralised approach for both learners and trainers, especially as the elearning is available to the whole health and social care workforce, including students on placement.”
In addition to including updated content the sessions also have more graphically rich and engaging content as the programme has been redeveloped using a new authoring tool, Adapt, which allows greater interactivity to reinforce learning.
The short and high-impact sessions have been developed to allow learners to complete the training and then progress to the assessment. There is also the option for learners to proceed straight to the assessment without completing the training, if they are confident in the subject area.
To access the free elearning sessions select this link or visit the Electronic Staff Record.
Health Education England has worked in partnership with Public Health England to transfer the NHS Screening Programmes’ elearning modules on to the elearning for healthcare (elfh) online platform.
There are 11 NHS Screening Programmes in England. These programmes are commissioned and managed based on the recommendations provided by UK National Screening Committee.
Screening is a way of identifying people who are at higher risk of a health problem, so that treatment can be offered or information given to help them make personalised informed decisions about their care.
Healthcare professionals use elearning as part of their training and continuing professional development and the new platform allows them to have all their NHS elearning training in one place.
The elearning, which was previously available on the CPD Screening website, is regularly updated to reflect national standards.
This elearning offers comprehensive training for healthcare professionals who offer screening to:
* pregnant women
* newborn babies
* adults (abdominal aortic aneurysm).
It does not currently include elearning for Cancer Screening or Diabetic Eye Screening, but will in future.
Access the elearning modules on the elearning for healthcare website.
The interoperability link from Health Education England has been vital to our continued development of Technology Enhanced Learning at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals.
We use Moodle as our Learning Management System which hosts all of our elearning and induction modules and we build the majority of these modules ourselves, with the support of Subject Matter Experts. Safer Use of Insulin was an external package we used, but had its limitations. We weren’t able to host this on our platform and simply provided a link for users to register their details on an external site. We then had to run a special report to capture all completions.
With the help of Health Education England, not only can we use their elearning content for this course, but we can also track all completions and the user can even download a certificate of completion, all within the Moodle platform.
From an administration perspective, it couldn’t be easier to add this course to our platform as the instructions are simple and anyone familiar with Moodle can utilise this AICC facility.
Over 2,500 members of staff are required to complete this module, and it is also included within the Medical Induction that users complete before they start at the Trust.
For more information contact David Spinks, Technology Enhanced Learning Manager, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS by emailing David.Spinks@btuh.nhs.uk or Charlotte Teager, Professional Advisor for Technology Enhanced Learning, Health Education England in the East of England by emailing Charlotte.Teager@nhs.net
Work included in the Hub release dated 28/01/2016
Work included in the Hub release dated 01/03/2016