Key Messages and links to 5^th August 2020

Welcome to Health Education England’s weekly stakeholder bulletin.

In this bulletin we will provide:

• Weekly message from the Chief Executive’s Office
• Overview of HEE education and training news

Weekly message from Professor Sheona MacLeod, Acting Director of Education and Quality and Executive Medical Director –

This week’s message is written by Professor Sheona MacLeod and focuses on the importance of working together to restart careers, building hope for the future and confidence in education and training. Read the full message here.

We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients by:

AHP Mental Health Framework – Health Education England is developing an ACP-Mental Health framework to grow the new Mental Health workforce.  We want to hear your views. Please complete the survey here.

Student placement expansion and innovation webinar – Friday 7 Aug 10am – Over June and July the Allied Health Profession team has been engaging with the sector through a series of online workshops, forums and webinars. Following the engagement with over 2,000 educators, practitioners and students from across the four nations we will be holding a webinar on Friday morning to provide an update on our findings and outline next steps.

Agenda:

• Reporting on AHP student placement online forum and workshop with 150 Leaders. Presented by Char Hobbs, AHP Student Placement, HEE and Janice St John-Matthews, Deputy Head of Department (AHP), UWE, Bristol
• Innovative placement solutions; crowd-sourced learning from practice. Presented by David Marsden, Regional AHP Lead across the North East and Yorkshire
• Round up of work with regulators and Professional Bodies – presented by Ruth Allarton, HE Advisor
• Close and next steps. Presented by Beverley Harden, National Lead for AHP, HEE

Join using this link

To find out more about HEE’s work in to support the essential supply of AHPs to the health and care workforce, visit their webpage and sign up for updates.  Visit the webpage and join the mailing list here

We are ensuring core HEE work to support our NHS colleagues continues:

Pharmacist Education and Training Reform – On 23 July 2020, Health Education England with NHS England and NHS Improvement published a joint letter setting out the context for accelerating the reform of pharmacist education. This letter also announced that Health Education England, in partnership with key stakeholders, is establishing an Interim Foundation Pharmacist Programme to help provisionally registered pharmacists’ transition to full registration and beyond. This is because the training and registration of the 2019/20 cohort of pre-registration pharmacists has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first phase of the reform and the purpose of the Interim Foundation Programme is to provide provisionally registered pharmacists with the foundation training support they need. This new Interim Foundation Pharmacist Programme, known as IFPP, is a HEE-funded 12- month education and training programme, starting in September 2020.

The IFPP has three aims:

• To support provisionally registered pharmacists in England transition to full General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) registration and beyond.
• To develop pharmacists’ ability to achieve high quality outcomes for patients, improve patient safety and reduce medication errors. • To inform the next stage of pharmacist education and reform.

A joint letter from Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement was shared on 22 July with key stakeholders, outlining the context for Pharmacist Education and Training Reform. The letter is available at this link.

A letter from Health Education England was also shared with the 2019/20 cohort of pre-registration pharmacists, announcing the Interim Foundation Pharmacist Programme (IFPP). This letter was also cascaded widely with key partners and stakeholders and is available at this link.

Find out more about the IFPP in the press release published on 3^rd August.

We anticipate there will be many questions about the new programme. The programme team will be sending weekly updates about the IFPP. We encourage you to subscribe to these updates by emailing fpp@hee.nhs.uk, stating ‘IFPP Updates’ in the subject header.

Maternity Support Worker Fund – Reminder that the closing date for applications and expressions of interest for the Maternity Support Worker fund is 16 August 2020. For more information view our webinar here. This is a one-off opportunity for Local Maternity Services to bid for funding. For full details about the simple application follow this link.

Mental Health Nurse Leadership Programme – Apply now to Mental Health Nurse Leadership Programme with the Florence Nightingale Foundation on this link. Deadline: 14th August 2020

Medical trainee webinars – In July, we held two webinars for medical trainees, the first focussing on training in the private sector and inclusion issues and the second on out of programme pause. The recordings for these webinars have now been uploaded to our YouTube channel and can be accessed through the following links:

Training in the private sector and inclusion issues

Out of programme pause

Decision support tool, available free to all NHS health professionals – An online tool and app which provides the latest evidence-based health information at the point of care has been made available to all health professionals in England, for free, thanks to Health Education England (HEE).

The British Medical Journal’s (BMJ) Best Practice tool, rated as one of the best clinical decision support tools for health professionals worldwide, provides the user with the latest evidence-based information including step by step guidance on diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention, whenever and wherever they need it.

Because medical advice and guidance changes rapidly it gives healthcare professionals quick and easy access to authoritative information to underpin diagnosis and treatment decisions, updated daily and using the latest expert option and available data.

BMJ/BP is available online and as an app – which also works offline.  Staff can visit bmj.com/hee to register and then download the app from their usual app store

We are making sure all professions have the training they need to make a difference:

National Breast Imaging Academy – In May 2020, the National Breast Imaging Academy (NBIA), in partnership with Health Education England elearning for healthcare (elfh), launched their elearning programme for radiographers, radiologists and breast clinicians.

elearning sessions are part of the NBIA’s aim to provide online learning to complement face-to-face clinical training. The sessions are designed to support trainees in breast imaging and to provide valuable continuing professional development (CPD) resources for all qualified staff.

The full programme of elearning sessions is due to launch in Autumn 2020, but many sessions are available now, to support your training needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s new in July 2020?

There are now 64 elearning sessions available on the elfh Hub.

New sessions added recently include:
Ultrasound Interpretation – Cysts and Collections
Clinical Evaluation and Management of Male Breast Disease
Epidemiology of Breast Cancer
Other Malignant Breast Disease

Additional sessions will be added to the elearning catalogue as soon as they are ready. For more information about the programme, including details on how to access the NBIA elearning sessions, please visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/national-breast-imaging-academy/

New Internal Medicine Training elearning programme launched – Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked with the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board to launch a new elearning programme, Internal Medicine Training.

The programme aims to set out how to write a meaningful and effective Educational Supervisor Report (ESR) for Internal Medicine training. This module sets out how to prepare to write an ESR, considered by the Annual Review of Competency Progression (ARCP) panel when assessing a trainee’s progress, starting with the initial meeting with the trainee, planning the training year and gives examples of good report writing.

This elearning package is aimed at educational supervisors of internal medicine trainees and covers the following areas:

• The ESR
• Capabilities in Practice (CiPs)
• Evidence
• Setting up the Training Year
• Some elements of the ARCP

For more information about the programme, including access details, visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/internal-medicine-training/.

The Learning Hub – Catalogues are coming soon 

The Learning Hub is a new digital platform that provides easy access to a wide range of resources that are pertinent to education and training in health and care. Organisations and users can contribute and share resources for those in health and care to access.

The Learning Hub team is currently working on the development of catalogues, which will enable organisations to have their own area on the Learning Hub; offering a home page with branding capability and a place for resources to be made available under an organisation’s own identity. An organisation can also nominate users to administer their catalogue. The first release of catalogues will be available soon and enhanced with more functionality over time, in line with the agile, iterative development of the platform.

For more information about the Learning Hub follow us on Twitter: @HEE_TEL and visit our blog to read about our journey so far. To access the Learning Hub visit: https://learninghub.nhs.uk

Supporting the well-being of the health and care workforce –

NHS People Plan 2020-2021 – The NHS People Plan published on the 30^th July aims to put NHS staff wellbeing at its heart with a new recruitment, retention and support package. It sets out practical support for well-being such as safe spaces to rest and recuperate, well-being guardians and support to keep staff physically safe and healthy. The People Plan builds on the innovations driven by staff during the pandemic and sets out how the NHS can embed them. Read more here.

By following @NHS_HealthEdEng you can keep up to date with new information and resources as they are published. Most importantly are the notifications of webinars being broadcast during the week.

Right now, making sure we are communicating properly is obviously incredibly important. If there’s any information you think is missing on HEE’s webpages, please let us know by submitting your question to the HEE Q&A helpdesk

Key Messages and links to 22^nd July 2020

Welcome to Health Education England’s fortnightly stakeholder bulletin.

In this bulletin we will provide:

• Weekly message from the Chief Executive’s Office
• Overview of HEE education and training news

Weekly message from Professor Wendy Reid, Interim Chief Executive –

This week’s message focuses on the importance of welcoming new students and trainees into the NHS offering them support and encouragement in an uncertain world – Being the role model we all would like to be is even more important this year. Read the full message here.

We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients by:

GP specialty training acceptances continues to break records – highest number ever seen in the NHS – After the initial rounds of recruitment, there have been 3441 acceptances, the highest ever figure for this stage in the recruitment process and the highest number of trainees entering general practice speciality training that the NHS has ever seen at this point. This is up 15% from 2019 when there were 2891 acceptances and an increase in numbers for a third year in a row.

HEE is still recruiting to general practice this year and the next round opens at the end of this month. The final overall total for this year will be known in the autumn. The published Round 1 and Round 1A figures also highlight good increases in fill rates across other key specialities including core psychiatry which has seen a 100% fill rate. Read more here.

We are ensuring core HEE work to support our NHS colleagues continues:

Future Doctor Report Published – The Covid-19 global pandemic brought into sharp focus how crucial generalist skills are in enabling doctors to manage complex patient care across different specialities. HEE’s Future Doctor report published this week sets out a vision for future clinical teams and how education and training can evolve so that our future doctors are equipped with the right skills to deliver care in an ever-changing health care landscape. This vision for the future doctor outlines how we can reform medical education so doctors better understand population needs, develop generalist skills and work effectively in multi-professional teams. Read more here.

Webinar – Out of Programme Pause – Save the date! Webinar for medical trainees on Out of Programme Pause, Tuesday 28 July. Ask your questions in advance here. Link to join on the night here

We are making sure all professions have the training they need to make a difference:

The Learning Hub – the start of an exciting journey – The Learning Hub is a new digital platform that provides easy access to a wide range of education and training resources for the health and care workforce. Organisations and users can contribute and share resources for those in health and care to access.  The Learning Hub was released into public Beta on 29 May 2020, but what does that really mean for the platform and its users?

To read more visit our blog.

Come and take a look at what the Learning Hub has to offer and provide us with your feedback: https://learninghub.nhs.uk.

If you have any questions or require further support, contact the Learning Hub team: enquiries@learninghub.nhs.uk.

Dysphagia Guide elearning resource now live – Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked in partnership with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, National Institute for Health Research Devices for Dignity MedTech and In vitro diagnostic Co-operatives and industry experts to develop the Dysphagia Guide elearning resource for those working with people living with dysphagia.

Dysphagia, which is difficulties chewing and/or swallowing food and drinks, has serious implications for a person’s health and well-being with increased likelihood of chest infections, malnutrition, dehydration, choking incidents and hospitalisations.

The resource, which was co-developed with care home staff and is relevant to others in the health and care workforce, informal carers and people with dysphagia themselves, can be used to support people working in care to gain the relevant level of competency for their role as outlined in the Eating, Drinking and Swallowing Competency Framework. This resource is also a useful guide for managers in policy and workforce development.

The Dysphagia Guide elearning resource, which has been adapted by HEE elfh, is made up of five sessions that cover the following topics:

• Essentials
• Food
• Quality and Safety
• Training and Resources
• Workforce

For more information about the elearning resource, including access details, please visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/dysphagia/.

Supporting the well-being of the health and care workforce –

Free online COVID-19 resilience support – With support from Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement, MindEd, one of elfh’s programmes, launched an online resource for the health and care workforce to help build mental health and well-being resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This free to access resource has been developed following close collaboration with MindEd’s panel of international subject matter experts and provides advice and support for the health and care workforce to help manage the different situations being experienced.

Content includes:

• Helping each other
• Tips for managers and team leaders
• Stress and fear
• Trauma and distress
• End of life and bereavement
• Further resources

For more information visit http://covid.minded.org.uk/, it is free to access with no requirement to register.

For more on how MindEd can help provide everyday guidance and support on the mental health, well-being and development of children and young people, visit the MindEd elearning programme: www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/minded/.

FURTHER INFORMATION

By following @NHS_HealthEdEng you can keep up to date with new information and resources as they are published. Most importantly are the notifications of webinars being broadcast during the week.

Right now, making sure we are communicating properly is obviously incredibly important. If there’s any information you think is missing on HEE’s webpages, please let us know by submitting your question to the HEE Q&A helpdesk.

Key Messages and links to 15^th July 2020

Welcome to Health Education England’s weekly stakeholder bulletin.

In this bulletin we will provide:

• Weekly message from the Chief Executive’s Office
• Overview of HEE education and training news, and our continued response to COVID-19

Weekly message from Professor Wendy Reid, Interim Chief Executive –

This week’s message focuses on how important it is that we build a reflective approach even more strongly into our culture and the way we do business. It would be great to see a fundamental shift in how we engage with our current and future workforce, and patients to ensure we are always listening and learning, and our developing experience of responding to the pandemic is already showing how vital these reflections are to the future.   Read the full message here.

We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients by:

Applications for nursing degrees have risen by 15 per cent in the last year to reach 58,500. Interest, and subsequently applications, have risen considerably during the coronavirus pandemic, which is testament to the respect and admiration people have for our health and care workforce generally and the opportunities that nursing careers offer.

We will be working with universities to ensure applications result in acceptances this year.  It is vital that new students have a high-quality education and placement experience to progress through their course and graduate into the health and care workforce in the future. We are investing an additional £10m into systems for placements, rolling out the RePAIR program to reduce course attrition. Clearing also represents an increasingly important route into nursing, and we will continue to promote nursing careers to ensure we meet patients’ needs.

Maternity Support Worker Funding – £1m funding has been made available to boost delivery of the HEE National Maternity Support Worker competence, education and career framework. Local Maternity Services (LMS) from the across the country are invited to bid for funding to support the education, training and development of Maternity Support Workers (MSW) in their area. Local Maternity Services can apply for up to £7350 per maternity unit to cover the costs of scoping work such as reviewing their current maternity support workforce and assessing staff training needs. Read more here.

We are ensuring core HEE work to support our NHS colleagues continues:

Medical Trainee Webinar – More than 1,200 trainees took part in this week’s webinar hosted by HEE, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the General Medical Council. There were a number of questions around shielding which is a significant concern to many trainees around the country. We are currently collecting data from each region so we have accurate numbers of the trainees and specialties affected, and we are working with partners including NHS Employers to ensure that both employment and training issues are addressed and that we have consensus on the definitions with regard to shielding and the implications for individual trainees.

We will also be making sure that Postgraduate Deans can use local flexibility to manage individual trainee needs. In the meantime, if any trainee has concerns about a current placement they should be encouraged to speak to their employer and educational supervisor. Any concerns about a future placement, should be directed to both Training Programme Director as well as future employer.

 AHP Blog – Leading in partnership – training students in the pandemic, from our National Allied Health Professions Lead, Beverley Harden. Read the full blog here.

Responding to COVID-19 – AHP Student Story – Third-year Physiotherapy student Zahra offers insight into her experience working at Evington Centre Community Hospital as part of the COVID-19 response – “Working through the pandemic has made me reflect on the kind of clinician I would like to be.” Read more here

Alternative Models of AHP Student Supervision – If you were not able to join our webinar around alternative models of student supervision the recording is now available to view here.

We are making sure all professions have the training they need to make a difference:

Oliver McGowan Mandatory Learning Disability and Autism training – Mandatory training for all health and social care staff who support patients with learning disabilities and autism moved a step closer with the announcement of the partners who will design, develop trial and evaluate the training.

Health Education England, Skills for Care and the Department of Health and Social care have selected British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD), Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Mencap Society/National Autistic Society and Pathways Associates CIC and the National Development Team for inclusion have been selected as the evaluation partner. Read more here.

The Learning Hub – how do you rate its resources? – It is now possible to rate resources on the Learning Hub, HEE’s new digital platform.

The Learning Hub is a new digital platform that provides easy access to a wide range of education and training resources for the health and care workforce.  Organisations and users can contribute and share resources for those in health and care to access.

The Learning Hub team has developed a new ratings functionality, enabling users to rate a resource by awarding an overall score of between 1 and 5. Users can view a resource rating and the total number of ratings that a resource has received, along with the scores. This new functionality helps users to see, at a glance, how a resource has been rated by others and will inform whether they choose to access it.  As well as using the ratings to inform their own resource selection, users are encouraged to rate each resource they access to share their ratings with other Learning Hub users.

The platform was released into public Beta six weeks ago, meaning that a minimum viable product (MVP) is available which includes core functionality. This enables users to access the system and try it out; providing feedback to help improve it to meet their needs. This is only the start of the journey and new features will be frequently released, in line with the product roadmap, to provide a comprehensive learning experience for users.

Come and take a look at what the Learning Hub has to offer and rate a resource yourself: https://learninghub.nhs.uk.

For more information about the Learning Hub follow us on Twitter: @HEE_TEL, visit our blog to read about our journey so far or visit: www.hee.nhs.uk/tel.

If you have any questions or require further support, contact the Learning Hub team: enquiries@learninghub.nhs.uk.

New Midwifery Continuity of Carer programme launched – HEE, in partnership with The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and NHS England and NHS Improvement, have collaborated to develop a new, free elearning programme supporting midwifery professionals.

The Midwifery Continuity of Carer programme has been designed for student midwives, lecturers, managers, practising clinical midwives and maternity support workers in the UK who want to understand more about a maternity model based around continuity of carer. The course provides short, easy to understand summaries of current research evidence on this topic together with brief overviews of the current national maternity policies that recommend continuity of carer.

Commenting on the resource The RCM said: The Royal College of Midwives supports the aim of Midwifery Continuity of Carer as a positive, evidence-based model of midwifery care. Midwives and managers may find these learning resources helpful for planning for future implementation in the post-pandemic period.”

HEE’s Lead Midwife, Sally Ashton May, said: “Our new continuity of carer resource has been developed for the midwifery community to understand more about a maternity model based around continuity of carer. This free online resource, developed in collaboration with the Royal College of Midwives includes interactive resources to bust some myths as well as lessons from service to support learning from earlier successes and challenges.”

For more information about the programme, including details of how to access, visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/midwifery-continuity-of-carer/.

Social Prescribing – Learning for Link Workers now live

HEE elearning for healthcare has developed an elearning resource to support link workers to deliver social prescribing.

Social prescribing enables all primary care staff and local agencies to refer people to a link worker. Link workers give people time and focus on what matters to the person as identified through shared decision making or personalised care and support planning. They connect people to community groups and agencies for practical and emotional support. They collaborate with local partners to support community groups to be accessible and sustainable and help people to start new groups.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to embedding social prescribing link workers within every primary care network (PCN) as part of a wider shift towards universal personalised care. The aim is for at least 900,000 people to be referred to social prescribing schemes by 2023/24.

The elearning includes the core elements and skills required to do the job and deliver social prescribing as part of a PCN multi-disciplinary team.

The six sessions are:

1. Introduction to the social prescribing link worker role
2. Developing personalised care and support plans with people
3. Developing partnerships
4. Introducing people to community groups and VCSE organisations
5. Safeguarding vulnerable people
6. Keeping records and measuring impact

For more information about the programme, including details of how to access, please visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/social-prescribing/

Supporting the well-being of the health and care workforce –

Free online COVID-19 resilience support – With support from Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement, MindEd, one of elfh’s programmes, launched an online resource for the health and care workforce to help build mental health and wellbeing resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This free to access resource has been developed following close collaboration with MindEd’s panel of international subject matter experts and provides advice and support for the health and care workforce to help manage the different situations being experienced.

Content includes:

• Helping each other
• Tips for managers and team leaders
• Stress and fear
• Trauma and distress
• End of life and bereavement
• Further resources

For more information visit http://covid.minded.org.uk/, it is free to access with no requirement to register.

For more on how MindEd can help provide everyday guidance and support on the mental health, wellbeing and development of children and young people, visit the MindEd elearning programme: www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/minded/.

FURTHER INFORMATION

By following @NHS_HealthEdEng you can keep up to date with new information and resources as they are published. Most importantly are the notifications of webinars being broadcast during the week.

Right now, making sure we are communicating properly is obviously incredibly important. If there’s any information you think is missing on HEE’s webpages, please let us know by submitting your question to the HEE Q&A helpdesk.

Key Messages and links to 8^th July 2020

Welcome to Health Education England’s weekly stakeholder bulletin.

In this bulletin we will provide:

• Weekly message from the Chief Executive’s Office
• Overview of HEE education and training news, and our continued response to COVID-19
• An update from your regional office

Weekly message from Professor Wendy Reid, Interim Chief Executive –

This week’s message focuses on disruptive change and how we’re thinking differently, working collaboratively and sharing our expertise in ‘workforce’ modelling, training, education and redesign, not only in response to COVID-19 but also to reform training and education for the future. Read the full message here.

We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients by:

Developing the future podiatry workforce – HEE is keen to capture views from across the foot health sector about sustaining the podiatry workforce supply. We have created a survey based on our webinar – watch the webinar, complete the survey

Universities can bid for more healthcare course places – HEE has announced £10 million to help support the growth of the clinical workforce. More students will have the opportunity to apply for places on nursing, midwifery or allied health professional courses in England, following unprecedented demand. Universities can now bid for more healthcare course places to support future growth – deadline extended and now matched to the Clinical Placement Expansion Programme. HEIs can bid here. There are also bidding forms for placement providers / facilitators to complete, and these need to be returned to educationfunding@hee.nhs.uk  also by 5pm on Friday 17th July.

New blended learning nursing degree offers flexibility and choice – HEE has signed up seven universities to a new innovative, accessible nursing degree programme, which will start from January 2021. The seven delivery partners for the new degree are Open University & Middlesex University, Open University & University of West of England, Coventry University, University of Huddersfield, University of Sunderland, University of Gloucestershire and Birmingham City University. Click here for more information

We are ensuring core HEE work to support our NHS colleagues continues:

Digital Transformation – COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation across the NHS. It is vital every trust has a strong understanding of it. HEE has been working with

NHS Providers, which has published a guide to NHS digital leadership. This guide is designed to help NHS trust boards lead their organisations into the next stage of digitisation.

New Training Hubs animation film – HEE’s Training Hubs are integral to our core purpose of helping deliver excellent healthcare through education and training to our current and future workforce meeting the priorities outlined in the NHS Long term plan. They are based in primary and community care to serve the local community. To support the understanding of what Training Hubs are and how they can be accessed, HEE has created a short Training Hubs animation film.

Accessible COVID-19 Patient Information Resources – During Health Information Week HEE’s Library and Knowledge Service have added up to date materials to their website to use when discussing Coronavirus with patients with different needs.

 Choose GP – The next round of GP specialty training applications opens from 28 July – 13 August (for a February 2021 start). Follow ‘Choose GP’ on Facebook or find case studies, FAQs and career information on the GP National Recruitment Office (GP NRO) website.

Join our fantastic senior nursing and midwifery leadership team – Please share with anyone you think might be interested. An equal opportunities employer particularly seeking applications from BAME colleagues. North East / South West

We are making sure all professions have the training they need to make a difference:

Remote teaching solution – Health Education England (HEE) continues to support the education and training of the existing and future health and care workforce during the response to the pandemic by introducing a remote teaching solution.

With the closure of physical training spaces as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need to train the future and existing workforce using remote teaching facilities. HEE’s Technology Enhanced Learning team (TEL) has worked with professions across the health and care sector to ensure the continued provision of education by accelerating the use of digital technologies to support this.

During the COVID-19 pandemic HEE has conducted over 500 online interviews for Foundation Year 2 posts and is planning for a further 1500 online interviews in October.  This new method of working has received positive feedback and was considered to have advantages for students and trainees.

Further information on the roll out of the remote teaching solution using Microsoft Teams will follow over the coming weeks with details about the availability of licences and access to training materials to support online delivery of education.

Frequently Asked Questions are being produced and will be available soon here.   For more information about the remote teaching solution please email tel@hee.nhs.uk.

 elfh COVID-19 resources – The elearning for healthcare (elfh) COVID-19 programme has now had 1.6 million session launches since it was launched in March 2020.

Recent additions to the programme include:

• New resources for trainers on infection prevention and control (IPC) in care homes that is designed to support IPC trainers in the care home setting
• New resources for Specially Sourced Items to support the treatment of COVID 19: This currently comprises resources relating to Closed Suction Catheters and Central Venous Catheters.
• New resources for returning doctors in primary care outlining the Call Audit Review which is part of the assurance process of the COVID-19 Clinical Assessment Service.

For more information about the programme please visit: www.e-lfh.org.uk/coronavirus.

Update to MECC elearning resource – Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked with Healthy Dialogues, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Lancashire Foundation Trust to update the Making Every Contact Count (MECC) elearning programme.

The MECC elearning programme is designed to support learners in developing an understanding of public health and the factors that impact upon health and wellbeing.  The programme focuses on how asking questions and listening effectively to people is a vital skill and these MECC interactions only take a matter of minutes while also complementing existing engagement approaches.

There are now four sessions within the programme:

• What is MECC and why it is important
• How to have a MECC conversation
• Signposting
• Five Ways to Wellbeing

The sessions, which have a combined learning time of approximately one hour, can be used by organisations, staff or individuals. It has been designed for everyone working across health and care.

For more information about the programme, including details of how to access the elearning sessions, visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/making-every-contact-count/.

Supporting the well-being of the health and care workforce –

Free online COVID-19 resilience support – With support from Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement, MindEd, one of elfh’s programmes, launched an online resource for the health and care workforce to help build mental health and wellbeing resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This free to access resource has been developed following close collaboration with MindEd’s panel of international subject matter experts and provides advice and support for the health and care workforce to help manage the different situations being experienced.

Content includes:

• Helping each other
• Tips for managers and team leaders
• Stress and fear
• Trauma and distress
• End of life and bereavement
• Further resources

For more information visit http://covid.minded.org.uk/, it is free to access with no requirement to register.

For more on how MindEd can help provide everyday guidance and support on the mental health, wellbeing and development of children and young people, visit the MindEd elearning programme: www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/minded/.

FURTHER INFORMATION

By following @NHS_HealthEdEng you can keep up to date with new information and resources as they are published. Most importantly are the notifications of webinars being broadcast during the week.

Right now, making sure we are communicating properly is obviously incredibly important. If there’s any information you think is missing on HEE’s webpages, please let us know by submitting your question to the HEE Q&A helpdesk.

Key Messages and links to 1^st July 2020

Welcome to Health Education England’s weekly stakeholder bulletin.

In this bulletin we will provide:

• Weekly message from the Chief Executive’s Office
• Overview of HEE education and training news, and our continued response to COVID-19
• An update from your regional office

Weekly message from the Chief Executive’s Office –

This week’s message is written by Professor Simon Gregory, Deputy Medical Director and Freedom to Speak up Guardian at Health Education England. He writes about health and wellbeing support during and post COVID-19 and our collective influence on practices, curricula and programmes to ensure they value us all, each other and our wellbeing, and support healthy, happy and sustainable careers. Read the full message here.

We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients by:

The importance of risk assessing and supporting rotating junior doctors from a BAME background – On Monday 22 June, HEE and NHS England and NHS Improvement sent a letter to Regional Medical Directors and Regional Postgraduate Deans highlighting the importance of employers having sufficient processes in place to identify, risk assess and support all rotating junior doctors from a BAME background. The letter also highlighted the published guidance on how to enhance risk assessments for staff, particularly for at risk vulnerable groups. 

FAQs for nursing and midwifery students – A set of FAQs for nursing and midwifery students, developed by HEE, the Council of Deans of Health, NHS Employers and union partners, has now been published. The document sets out the transition back to supernumerary placements to enable students to progress with their education or complete their programme and join the NMC register.

UCAS Facebook Live for prospective nursing students – Last week, HEE’s Chief Nurse Mark Radford took part in a UCAS Facebook Live promoting nursing alongside Amy Fancourt, a mental health nursing student and RCN student council member, and Sadeka Davy, a trainee nursing associate. The broadcast covered a range of questions about pursuing nursing as a career and had 24,000 unique viewers with a reach that was twice as big as UCAS’s two previous broadcasts combined. The UCAS Facebook Live is available to view on UCAS’s Facebook page.

We are ensuring core HEE work to support our NHS colleagues continues:

Rapid Expansion of AHP placements: Simulation and Technology Enabled Care Services (TECS) webinar – Whilst we aim to expand our workforce by increasing the number of Allied Health Professionals in education, we need to ensure that we also have adequate good quality placements and learning environments to support this. There is increasing potential to include simulation and TECS* placements as part of this.

We know that many HEIs and Trust are doing this already so aim of the webinar is to:

• Define what we mean by simulated and TECS* placements
• Explain and share the opportunities and resources already in place to support simulation
• Provide the regulatory and professional body position on simulation and TECS placements
• Showcase examples from around the country, many of which are easily generalisable/applicable to different professions and areas.

Presenters will include:

• Beverley Harden, Allied Health Professions Lead, Health Education England & Deputy Chief Allied Health Professions Officer, England
• Brendan Edmonds, HCPC
• Ruth Allerton, AHP Placement Capacity Expansion Project
• The TEL team
• David Marsden, Regional AHP Lead for North East and Yorkshire, HEE

*Technology enabled care services (TECS) refers to the use of telehealth, telecare, telemedicine, telecoaching and self-care in providing care for patients with long term conditions that is convenient, accessible and cost-effective.

The webinar will take place on Tuesday 7 July, 9am-midday. To join on the day, please click here.

Student Number Controls cap (bidding for additional undergraduate healthcare places) – In May, the Department of Health and Social Care announced its support package for universities and students, which included temporary controls capping the number of students for the 2020/21 academic year. The controls allow HEIs to recruit UK and EU students for 2020/21 up to a set level, based on their forecast plus an additional 5%.

To ensure that barriers are not put in the way of increasing the future domestic supply of nursing and allied health professionals, the announcement included a number of dispensations and supporting measures for full-time healthcare courses at degree level. These included an additional 5,000 course places ringfenced for students studying nursing, midwifery or selected allied health profession courses.

HEIs can bid for the additional healthcare places, and the Department for Education’s (DfE) bidding portal opened on Thursday 18th June 2020. Originally set to close on the 26th June 2020, due to extremely strong demand for additional nursing, midwifery and healthcare places, the Department of Health and Social Care and HEE have agreed with DfE to extend the timetable for bids until 5pm on Friday 17th July 2020. HEIs can bid here.

Clinical Placement Expansion Programme – To support healthcare course growth, both planned and as a consequence of the ‘5,000 additional place’ bidding, HEE has launched the Clinical Placement Expansion Programme.

NHS England & NHS Improvement ran the Clinical Placements Support Programme for nursing in 2019, with 142 NHS Trusts working together with their local higher education institutions to create more than 7,500 new nursing clinical placement places. HEE is repeating this scheme for 2020 and expanding this to include placements for students training in selected allied health professions (AHP).

Bids to the Clinical Placements Expansion Programme can complement other funding bids, such as those already entered for AHP clinical facilities and to the Strategic Support Fund. Only by increasing both course places and placement capacity together will see the growth in pre-registration training that the Interim People Plan demands, and we hope to see alignment of bids between bids to the DfE for additional course places and to HEE for clinical placement expansion funding.

There are bidding forms for placement providers/facilitators to complete, and these need to be returned to educationfunding@hee.nhs.uk also by 5pm on Friday 17th July.

These initiatives are central to our ability to deliver growth in undergraduate supply. The determination and innovation shown by Schools of Healthcare throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has helped us to secure them and to provide the reassurance that we can continue to expand undergraduate healthcare courses as previously planned.

COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Toolkit for NHS Trusts – A toolkit to support NHS Trusts during the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic was developed from a library search requested on Recovery by the Chief Executive of Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, which has since been shared with 46 other Trusts.

The toolkit is a collation of resources including sections on recovery planning, capacity and long-term impacts, workforce wellbeing, learning lessons, organisational resilience and innovation and is available to all NHS Trusts.

For any further assistance with evidence and knowledge please do connect with your local library service for your NHS organisations.

A new resource pack to help doctors in Foundation training – On Thursday 25 June, HEE launched a new resource pack to help doctors in Foundation training. HEE worked with partners to produce this pack of new resources aimed at easing student doctors into Foundation training and supporting them during the training programme. It follows HEE’s review of the Foundation Medical Training Programme, which resulted in several recommendations to improve support for trainees, educators, and the wider system. To find out more about this resource pack, read the full update on HEE’s website.

Greater flexibility for doctors in training – As part of HEE’s Medical Education Reform Programme, HEE has announced plans to provide greater flexibility to medical trainees across the country by extending its out of programme pause programme (OOPP) to include all specialties.

To find out more about the new plans, read the full update on HEE’s website. Please note, HEE are managing these opportunities locally – trainees should contact their local hubs directly to find out more.

An innovative approach to Allied Health Profession (AHP) clinical placements – HEE recently shared a blog from Char, an AHP student from the south east who introduced readers to the AHP placement project she is working on with Clever Together. This project aims to generate insight from the AHP sector to facilitate and support the spread of innovation in relation to clinical placements, as part of the response to COVID-19.

To help achieve this HEE will be launching an online workshop to consider a number of questions in relation to AHP placements and how to overcome the challenges presented by COVID-19. All the feedback will be captured, analysed, and shared widely in the AHP community to innovate together.

Choose GP – The next round of GP specialty training applications opens from 28 July – 13 August (for a February 2021 start). Follow ‘Choose GP’ on Facebook or find case studies, FAQs and career information on the GP National Recruitment Office (GP NRO) website.

We are making sure all professions have the training they need to make a difference:

elfh COVID-19 programme – The elearning for healthcare (elfh) COVID-19 programme is still being well used by the health and care workforce responding to the pandemic.  Since its launch in March 2020 there have been 1.57 million session launches and during June 2020 the programme averaged 10,000 session launches each day.

For more information about the programme please visit: www.e-lfh.org.uk/coronavirus/

Other elfh resources – HEE elfh has worked with Skills for Care to add new content to the Care Certificate elearning programme.

The Care Certificate programme is an identified set of standards that health and social care workers adhere to in their daily working life. Designed with the unregistered workforce in mind, the Care Certificate was developed to provide structured and consistent learning to ensure that care workers have the same introductory skills, knowledge and behaviours to provide compassionate, safe, quality care and support.

New scenario sessions have been launched to support learners working towards the 15 Standards of the Care Certificate. The scenarios are an opportunity for learners to apply the principles behind the Care Certificate in a range of settings and represents the breadth of environments where the Care Certificate can be applied.

The existing scenario sessions, which were launched in 2018, have also been updated are now suitable for those who wish to learn via a mobile phone.

The new scenario session settings are:

• Maternity
• Learning disability
• Homeless
• Reablement
• Pre-hospital

The updated scenario settings are:

• Primary care
• Mental health
• Acute
• End-of-life
• Home care

For more information on the Care Certificate elearning programme, see: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/care-certificate/

Last month the National Breast Imaging Academy (NBIA), in partnership with HEE elfh, launched their elearning programme for radiographers, radiologists and breast clinicians.

elearning sessions are part of the NBIA’s aim to provide online learning to complement face-to-face clinical training. The sessions are designed to support trainees in breast imaging and to provide valuable continuing professional development (CPD) resources for all qualified staff.

The full programme of elearning sessions is due to launch in Autumn, but many sessions are available now, to support your training needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s new in June 2020?

There are now over 60 elearning sessions are available via the elfh Hub. New sessions added recently include:

• Advanced Ultrasound Techniques 1 Elastography
• Assessment for Mammographers
• Axillary Staging in Breast Cancer Patients
• Day in the Life of a Breast Clinician
• Day in the Life of a Histopathologist
• Interpreting Contrast-enhanced Spectral Mammography
• Living With, Through and Beyond Breast Cancer
• Mammographic Artefacts
• MRI Artefacts
• MRI in Breast Cancer
• QA, Standards and Guidance
• Ultrasound Interpretation – Solid Benign Masses

Additional sessions will be added to the elearning catalogue as soon as they are ready.

For further information about the NBIA please visit:  www.nationalbreastimagingacademy.org.

For more information about the sessions, including details on how to access the NBIA elearning programme, please visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/national-breast-imaging-academy/.

Supporting the well-being of the health and care Workforce –

HEE podcasts

HEE’s Professional Support Unit (PSU) has released two new professional development and SuppoRTT podcasts to support trainees during COVID-19. The most recent podcast episode is:

• Perspectives from the frontline and the sidelines

To find out more or to listen to the podcasts, visit either HEE’s anchor.fm profile here or HEE’s Spotify profile here 

FURTHER INFORMATION

By following @NHS_HealthEdEng you can keep up to date with new information and resources as they are published. Most importantly are the notifications of webinars being broadcast during the week.

Right now, making sure we are communicating properly is obviously incredibly important. If there’s any information you think is missing on HEE’s webpages, please let us know by submitting your question to the HEE Q&A helpdesk.