Frankie, 28 January 2010
Access to high quality end of life care training is set to be transformed with the rollout of elearning resources for huge numbers of health and social care staff.
e-ELCA (End of Life Care for All) is one of the key elements in a programme to improve the skills of up to 2.5 million people working with dying people and their families – a key recommendation of the End of Life Care Strategy published in 2008.
The programme was launched in London on 21 January with around 60 highly-interactive learning sessions complete and soon to be available across large parts of the health and social care workforce. Each session lasts around 20 minutes and includes features such as self-assessment tools, audio/video clips and case studies.
All are written by experts in their field and peer reviewed.
The Department of Health (DH), the National End of Life Care Programme (NEoLCP), elearning for healthcare (elfh) and the Association for Palliative Medicine are all working in partnership to develop the resources. Each session will provide a certificate as evidence of learning.
Information on e-ELCA and some sessions open to the public can be accessed at www.EndofLifeCareforAll.com. Health and social care workers seeking to register for access to the much higher number of sessions which require registration should visit www.e-elca.org.uk.
Health and social care staff who do not yet have access to the elearning Management System can get started by working on nine sessions on the public-facing section of the website. That figure will soon rise to 12.
Eventually, staff working at all levels in any relevant job and across care settings from acute hospitals to care homes and domiciliary care will be able to access around 130 learning sessions based around four core courses.
These are:
- Assessment
- Advance care planning
- Communication skills
- Symptom management
A fifth course integrates learning through case studies.
NEoLCP director Claire Henry said:
“This is about widening access to training for many health and social care staff and volunteers. We are at last within reach of high quality, accessible training for everybody involved in this challenging area.”
Dr Bee Wee, national clinical lead for e-ELCA, said:
“One day we will all want top notch end of life care from the best trained staff – nurses, social workers, doctors, therapists – and volunteers. These interactive sessions are created by experts at the sharp end for all those at the coal face. Most are easy, many are fun – all are free.”
Julia Moore, national director for elearning for healthcare, said:
“As a mode of delivery for educational material, elearning capitalises on the latest technology to support flexible and self-directed learning for the health and social care workforce, including the 2.5 million involved in providing end of life care.”
For more information or to register for e-ELCA visit https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/end-of-life-care or contact the e-ELCA team at elca.support@e-lfh.org.uk.
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