Andy Dowden, 1 August 2016
Waiting for a meeting? Travelling on a train? A spare 20 minutes before lunch? Why not open an End of Life Care for All (e-ELCA) elearning session and learn something new? Created in 2010 and completely updated in 2015, e-ELCA is an elearning programme aimed at enhancing the training and education of all those involved in providing end-of-life care. It is managed by Health Education England’s elearning for healthcare programme in partnership with the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland (APM).
e-ELCA has over 160 elearning sessions written by specialists in the field of palliative care in the UK and Ireland. The sessions are grouped into subject specific modules about advance care planning, symptom management, assessment, communication skills and bereavement, two modules that focus on learning for social care, spiritual care and a module that uses case scenarios to help integrate learning. More information about the background and detail of the content can be found in our recent EJPC article – please see below.
You can register for e-ELCA or if you are not eligible you can purchase it. Thirteen sessions are free to access. Additionally Recognising the Last Months and Days of Life is available as a sample session. This is a very important session to help doctors and nurses address the significant issues that recent reports about the quality of end of life care have highlighted.
You can see further how e-ELCA sessions can support the competences required to meet the Priorities of Care of the Dying Person report by you or your trainees, students or colleagues completing a Training Needs Analysis. NICE has indicated that e-ELCA sessions are a good way of supporting implementation of the Guideline for Care of Dying Adults in the Last Days of Life.
Many specialists in palliative care are using the sessions within their teaching. For example for a course about advance care planning (ACP) Introduction to Principles of Advance Care Planning may be used to bring course participants to a common level before attending a study day. This ACP course may also make use of e-ELCA material for discussion within a group (for example How to Negotiate Decisions Which May be Difficult to Implement) and perhaps as a way to consolidate or further learning (for example Developing Your Practice: Clinical Supervision and Further Reading. There are tips about how e-ELCA can motivate and engage learners and suggested learning paths or collections of sessions to support staff groups. In addition e-ELCA sessions have been mapped to the end of life care qualification, especially useful for social care workers. Mapping to the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland Undergraduate Medical Student Curriculum is underway. Keep in touch through the e-ELCA website
My personal favourite session is Spirituality and Philosophy of End of Life Care. It’s a session that makes me think and reflect even after over 25 years of supporting people who are dying. The importance of the holistic approach to people in finding themselves, is so beautifully articulated through a patient video. A good way to spend those 20 minutes!
European Journal for Palliative Care July 2016
Professor Christina Faull
Consultant in Palliative Medicine
LOROS hospice, Leicester UK
APM National Clinical Lead for e-ELCA
@cmfaull
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