Key Messages and links to 01 October 2021
Welcome to Health Education England’s regular stakeholder bulletin. In this bulletin we will provide:
- Latest messages from our Chief Executive
- COVID-19 latest updates
- Overview of HEE education and training news
Weekly messages from HEE
Read recent messages from Dr Navina Evans, Chief Executive, HEE:
I am incredibly proud of my colleagues in HEE for their work during a uniquely difficult year
As Navina approaches her first anniversary as Chief Executive at Health Education England (HEE), she reflects on what we and the wider NHS have faced due to the impact of COVID-19 on services, our people, and of course patients. HEE’s people played their role by helping over 40,000 students and trainees offer their services to the front line. We have worked in partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement, the Department of Health and Social Care, HEIs, employers and professional regulators to support the system when it needed it most. We also provided global education through our HEE eLearning for Healthcare COVID-19 programme, free of charge, with over 4.5million session launches across the world. Read Navina’s blog in full here.
Re-appointment for HEE Chair and board members
Sir David Behan, chair of HEE and his non-executive colleagues on the board, Dr Liz Mear and Professor Andrew George, have been appointed for another term by the Department of Health and Social Care. They will continue in their roles until 2024. To read the full announcement visit Gov.uk
HEE COVID-19 latest updates
We have created a COVID-19 update webpage that provides guidance and information from HEE, which applies to all students and trainees. This webpage also includes HEE COVID-19 surge guidance.
To keep up to date with plans for medical training recovery, visit HEE COVID-19 webpages.
If we want doctors tomorrow, we must continue to train and support them today
In Prof Sheona MacLeod’s latest training recovery update, she recognises the impact the waves of the pandemic have had on the education and training of healthcare learners including postgraduate doctors in training – and why HEE has refreshed the guidance on managing the training workforce. This reaffirms the need to retain learners on programmes and maintain training wherever possible and it has updated processes for decisions about deployment into service. Read Sheona’s full update here.
New Respiratory Surge in Children programme now available
Health Education England, supported by NHS England and NHS Improvement Paediatric Critical Care Operational Delivery Networks and the Paediatric Critical Care Society, has launched a new programme for all NHS healthcare staff who care for unwell children in preparation for the anticipated surge in respiratory infections in 2021-22.
The Respiratory Surge in Children programme is a digital repository of training resources for self-directed learning, as well as for trainers and educators, to support the cross-skilling of the workforce to increase capacity and enhance capability in response to the expected and experienced increase in prevalence of respiratory illnesses in children.
The programme presents e-learning as a mix of short videos, narrated presentations, PDFs and links to blogs and webinars – all designed to let the leaner access the content they need, in an educational form that suits them. The team continues to seek additional content, and feedback, on the work so far to co-create a programme that meets the needs of the workforce. You can get in touch to discuss specific needs, provide feedback, or share resources by emailing LTLC@hee.nhs.uk.
We are supporting all professions to rapidly grow to meet the needs of patients:
Nursing
HEE welcomes NMC recommendations for education reform
HEE has welcomed the news from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) that it is making recommendations to modernise pre-registration education programme standards which will be discussed at the next board meeting on 29 September. Read the full statement from HEE’s Chief Nurse, Mark Radford.
Midwifery
Explore genomics in midwifery
Genomics is fundamental to midwifery practice. It allows midwives to predict and prepare for situations in pregnancy to better protect and care for the parent and child. To help midwives recognise the significance of genomics in their practice, the Genomics Education Programme (GEP) has created a new resource in the Genomics in Healthcare series: Genomics in Midwifery. The webpage brings together tips and tools to support midwives at any point of their career and at any stage of their genomics learning journey.
The resource brings together a variety of learning opportunities, including an introductory animation highlighting the importance of genomics in midwifery practice, a pregnancy touchpoint walkthrough with good practice tips and a case study that explores why early information about family history can have such a big impact on care. View the resource on our website.
Dental
New plans for dental training reform in England to tackle inequalities in patient oral health
HEE has published an ambitious four-year plan to develop a workforce more able to address oral health inequalities across the population by reforming dental education and training. The Advancing Dental Care (ADC) Review report concludes a three-year review to identify and develop a future dental education and training infrastructure that produces a skilled multi-professional oral health workforce, which can support patient and population needs within the NHS. Read the full story here.
Mental health
Mental health crisis learning guides
Crisis Tools is relevant to anyone who may find themselves supporting a young person in crisis including parents, carers and professionals. Access the unique, co-produced learning guides to increase knowledge and confidence for anyone supporting young people in a mental health crisis at crisistools.org.uk.
The Crisis Tools website features a resource-sharing hub and bite-sized learning guides aimed at improving your knowledge and understanding of young people’s experiences when getting help in a crisis. Co-designed and delivered by young people with lived experience, these unique learning guides will cover key themes including attitudes, communication, practical strategies and complexities when delivering care remotely.
Healthy Teen Minds young advisor Jo, has shared how to have compassionate and supportive mental health crisis conversations with them.
Workforce and education initiatives
Independent evaluation of the Global Digital Exemplar programme
An independent evaluation of the Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme has been published by Edinburgh University.
The evaluation report indicates that the GDE programme achieved what it set out to do, namely stimulating digitally enabled transformation and the sharing of knowledge between participating provider organisations and programme managers. These were the twin goals of the programme.
An executive summary of the report is available on the NHSX website. You can also read a blog post by NHSX Director of Frontline Digitisation Dermot Ryan on how the findings of the report align with ongoing support for frontline digitisation.
Virtual and Hybrid Learning Faculty launch
HEE’s Technology Enhanced Learning (HEE TEL) team is expanding the Virtual Instructor Led Learning (VILL) project which aims to support the health and care education community to increase their confidence and capability as they transition to designing, developing and delivering learning and education virtually and in a hybrid way.
As part of the project to support educators and the education community, HEE TEL has developed a Virtual and Hybrid Learning Faculty (VHLF). The faculty is a place for educators, and those involved within the health and care education community, to access useful on-demand resources, guides, elearning and technical support when designing, developing and delivering virtual and hybrid learning. It will showcase best practice principles, learning opportunities and offer advice on how to get involved in the community, giving educators the opportunity to support colleagues and find out the latest news. The faculty is now live on the Learning Hub, a digital platform enabling the health and care workforce to contribute and share a wide variety of learning resources.
NHSX would like your feedback
NHSX would like your feedback on how you think they are doing to digitally transform the NHS and social care. They’d like to hear from those working in health technology and digital services across the NHS and social care, or leaders or managers in clinical and non-clinical roles. The research is conducted independently and fully anonymous, it’s open until 8 October 2021.
elearning for Healthcare
Keep up to date with all the latest additions to the eLfH platform 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.