Newly updated Dysphagia elearning now available

The Dysphagia elearning programme has recently been updated to help healthcare staff better manage the condition with people in care homes, hospitals and community settings.

Dysphagia, which is difficulty chewing and/or swallowing food and drinks, has serious implications for a person’s health and wellbeing, with increased likelihood of chest infections, malnutrition, dehydration, choking incidents and hospitalisations. Patients with dysphagia may be unable to swallow their medicines safely.

The programme has been updated to align with Level 2 of the Eating, Drinking and Swallowing Competency Framework. It is now easy for learners to compete the Essentials sessions (below) as a specific training course with an assessment and certificate to evidence their learning.

Once the Essentials sessions are completed the others can be explored at leisure.

The updated sessions are now called:

• Essentials – Health and Care Staff
• Essentials – Cooks
• Managers
• Balancing Risk and End of Life Care
• Training Resources and Recipes
• Dysphagia and Medicines

The ability to use the guide as a ‘dip in and out’ resource has been retained so that learners can easily refresh their memory or help explain something to a colleague. Care home staff, including managers, nurses, care workers, catering staff and the wider NHS team, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, speech and language therapists, dietitians, and others working with patients with dysphagia will find this resource helpful.

It has been updated by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust and NHS England elearning for healthcare.

For more information and to access the updated content, please visit the Dysphagia programme page.