April’s issue of TEL News includes an update on the HEE elfh COVID-19 elearning programme and details of free online COVID-19 resilience support. There is also an update on the new Foundation Fast Track programme plus details of new content added to the Domestic Violence and Abuse elearning programme
Select the following link to access our full publication of TEL News.
The number of student and trainees that have agreed to work on the frontline to help fight coronavirus has now reached over 30,000.
Almost 22,500 student nurses and midwives have volunteered to take up paid placements on the frontline. Nearly 2,500 Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), covering a range of professions including occupational therapists, physiotherapists and paramedics have also answered the call.
More than 3,000 medical students have chosen to graduate early, freeing them up to start work over the next weeks and months instead of in August and 2,200 medical students in years 1-4 have agreed to support the frontline with various volunteering roles.
Healthcare Scientists – The first in a series of webinars by the National School of Healthcare Science was held on Friday 1 May at 2pm. The webinar was led by Professor Berne Ferry, Head of the National School of Healthcare Science and Jane Lynch, Training Programme Director of the STP; they answered questions, provided guidance and advice to trainees and training officers about the challenges of progressing with training during the Coronavirus pandemic. It was attended by 800 people and the recording is available to view here.
Joint HEI / NSHCS webinar for STP trainees – On Thursday May 14th at 2pm Carol Ainley, Director of Manchester Academy for Healthcare Scientist Education, will be joining senior colleagues from the National School, to answer questions about the academic aspect of the STP.
STP assessment and completion in 2020 for third year STP trainees and training officers – On Friday May 15th at 2pm Jane Lynch, Training Programme Director of the STP, will be joined by Sandie Gay, Head of Education & Assessment at the NSHCS, will be hosting a webinar aimed specifically at third year trainees and training officers to answer questions about completion and the alternative to the OSFA, the Independent Assessment of Clinical Competence.
Visit the National School of Healthcare Science to get links to the webinars closer to the time.
Apprentices – HEE has secured End Point Assessment (EPA) flexibilities for Nursing Associate and Registered Nurse apprentices which allows them to register with the NMC and complete their apprenticeship at the same time. As a result, we anticipate this could be up to 3,000 apprentices who have been able to support the frontline. Employers are already sharing the positive impact this is having on their apprentices at this challenging time.
In addition to this we have secured further flexibilities in a range of apprenticeship standards such as Level two and three Healthcare Support Workers, Level five Assistant Practitioner L4 Associate Ambulance Practitioner and L4 Mammography Associate.
Midwifery Students – HEE’s Chief Nurse, Mark Radford, and Senior Midwife, Sally Ashton-May, hosted a webinar for student midwives last week and were joined by two students Rachael Dewey and Alicia Burnett, as well as Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, the Chief Midwifery Officer for England, Birte Harlev-Lam, Executive Director for Professional Leadership at the Royal College of Midwives, and Jacqui Williams, Senior Midwifery Advisor at the Nursing and Midwifery Council. In addition, we have launched a new Covid-19 midwifery webpage to support the midwifery community. Tuesday 5 May was International Day of the Midwife, a day for recognition of the valuable work that midwives do supporting mothers, babies and their families, and Sally Ashton-May has written a blog and shared a thank you message on social media commemorating all of the hard work of midwives and student midwives during Covid-19.
Doctors Returning to Training – If you missed our knowledge refresher and wellbeing webinars for doctors returning to training – you can now watch them online.
We are ensuring core HEE work to support our NHS colleagues continues:
Trainee progression in August 2020 and beyond – A letter from the four Statutory Education Bodies to Medical Royal Colleges,
As we move past the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, we must now ensure that doctors in training are enabled to progress their careers in the way that they would expect and deserve, and in the way that our systems need as we begin delivering the recovery and renewal phase. Read the letter in full on our website.
Annual Review of Competency Progression
Latest guidance on ARCPs for specialty and foundation trainees has been updated on our website.
For specialty trainees:
For Foundation trainees:
Final Review of Competency Progression for Dental Core Training
Guidance and associated annexes regarding competency progression for Dental Core Training has been published. The update includes:
Update for trainees in their final year of GP specialty training
The 4 Statutory Education Bodies (HEE, HEIW, NES and NIMDTA), RCGP, GMC, BMA, NHSE and DHSC, as well as trainee representatives have all been working together to achieve a deliverable solution for final year GP specialty trainees.
A joint letter has been published on the website.
All the above mentioned documents can be found on our medical and dental trainee information page and trainee FAQ page.
We are making sure all professions have the training they need to make a difference:
HEE elearning for healthcare (elfh) – The COVID-19 elearning for healthcare programme is still being well used by the health and care workforce. It has been launched over 940,000[1] times since it went live mid-March 2020. The team are now starting to assess usage statistics from different professional groups as the early part of the evaluation work on the programme.
Six of the headline metrics on session launches are:
New content is still being added to the programme and in the last couple of days we have created a new learning path called “Resources for Cabin Crew Supporting Delivery of Direct Patient Care”. This content is for redeployed cabin crew providing direct patient care supporting nursing and healthcare assistant staff. The resource can be accessed here.
We have also added dental resources to the Returning Clinicians programme which you can find here and a new learning path for nurses who have been deployed into primary and community care. The learning path can be accessed here.
A new webinar has also been added for pharmacists supporting 111 via the Returning Clinicians (excluding GPs) programme. This resource can be accessed here.
For more information about the programme including a drop-down list of resources available by role select 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.
As part of the education and training response to the COVID-19 pandemic Health Education England elearning for healthcare has created a COVID-19 elearning programme.
The programme, which is free to access, contains resources for the health and care workforce and volunteers responding to the pandemic in a variety of settings including critical care, acute hospital and primary and community.
One of the resources included in the Primary Care and Community Setting learning path is “Remote Total Triage in General Practice”. This resource has been developed by the Digital First Primary Care Team at NHS England and NHS Improvement and Health Education England to support all GP practices in England with the rapid implementation of a ‘total triage’ model.
This model enables practices to use an online consultation system to gather clinically relevant information from patients in their own time and triage patient contacts, responding using the most appropriate modality to meet the patient’s needs such as via telephone, video, text or online messaging. Non-digital users are taken through the same process by administrative staff over the telephone.
Total triage is important to reduce avoidable footfall into practices and protect patients and staff from the risks of infection. It enables practices to manage work more efficiently, whilst supporting continuity of care and equity of access.
The session materials cover the planning, training, what changes are required and the key messages and resources available to assist with total triage implementation. It also includes practical guidance for the enhanced role required from practice administration staff.
Access the resource here: https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Component/Details/609561.
For more information about the COVID-19 elearning programme visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/coronavirus.
HEE elearning for healthcare’s (elfh) COVID-19 elearning programme is free to access, with no requirement to log in, for the entire UK health and care workforce, including the NHS, independent sector and social care.
The HEE elfh COVID-19 elearning programme continues to be well used by health and care professionals responding to the pandemic. The programme has been live since mid-March and it has now been launched more than 960,000 times.
The COVID-19 programme now includes:
Daily content updates
4 May: Session launches for the COVID-19 elearning programme have now passed the 925,000 mark. We are starting to look at the usage statistics from different professional groups as the early part of the evaluation work on the programme.
Six of the headline metrics on session launches are:
New content is still being added to the programme and we now have a new learning path called “Resources for Cabin Crew Supporting Delivery of Direct Patient Care”. This content is for redeployed cabin crew providing direct patient care supporting nursing and healthcare assistant staff. The resource can be accessed here.
For more information about the programme including a drop down list of resources available by role select here.
7 May: There have been more than 960,000 session launches on the elfh COVID-19 elearning programme.
A new learning path for health and care staff working in a care home setting has recently been added. The resources can be accessed here.
New resources for radiographers have also been added to the programme. The content includes minimising risk using PPE and infection control, how to safely use mobile equipment and optimising image quality. The resources can be accessed here.
For more information about the programme select here.
Learning Hub update
Health Education England’s (HEE) Technology Enhanced Learning team will be releasing the Learning Hub, with core functionality, at the end of May 2020. The Learning Hub is being released to support the Coronavirus (COVID-19) response by enabling the health and care workforce to share and access resources during the pandemic.
The Learning Hub will be a new digital platform that will provide easy access to a wide range of resources that are pertinent to education and training in health and care. Users will be able to contribute digital resources (including video, audio, images, documents, web links, articles etc) and search and access the variety of learning resources that will have been contributed by stakeholders and the health and care workforce to support system readiness and recovery from the pandemic. New features will frequently be released in line with the original plan for the functionality of the Learning Hub in its Beta phase.
The Learning Hub will add to HEE’s existing suite of platforms and complements the major role the elearning for healthcare Hub is playing as part of the COVID-19 response.
If you would like to know more about this release of the Learning Hub follow @HEE_TEL on Twitter, read the blog and look out for regular updates over the next few weeks.
HEE update
HEE is producing a weekly bulletin with updates about its work as part of the COVID-19 response. This week’s issue can be accessed here.
For more information and to access the HEE elfh COVID-19 programme visit https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/coronavirus/.
As part of the COVID-19 response a new programme was created for interim foundation Year 1 doctors who are being fast tracked into their Foundation Training.
This programme has been launched 53,161 times since it went live earlier this month with more than 4700 elfh accounts created.
The Foundation Fast Track elearning programme contains essential learning for Interim Foundation Year 1 (FiY1) doctors who are being fast tracked into their Foundation Training to support the workforce in responding to the pandemic.
The courses include a cut down version of the Statutory and Mandatory programme focusing on the key requirements for FiY1 doctors, and the Doctors in Training Induction scenarios, each of which contains a related assessment. Users will meet patients in each of the scenarios and follow their journeys. Each scenario covers relevant learning objectives and allows users to focus on key professional skills that they will need in their role as a Foundation Doctor.
The following courses from the Foundation learning programme are also included and are aimed at the key areas relating to the treatment of patients during the Coronavirus pandemic:
- Professional capabilities 9: Recognises, assesses and initiates management of the acutely ill patient (FiY1)
- Professional capabilities 11: Obtains history, performs clinical examination, formulates differential diagnosis and management (FiY1)
- Professional capabilities 13: Prescribes safely
To access the Foundation Fast Track elearning programme visit https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Component/Details/611029.