This e-learning enables the implementation of effective oral hygiene measures to help avoid oral complications and the need for dental treatment.
Health Education England working across the South East has developed this e-learning package to support the training of all healthcare professionals involved in mouth care. It has been designed to give health and care staff guidance to provide evidenced based mouth care. It emphasises the importance of oral health and its links to general health with the intention of ensuring that their patients and clients can enjoy the benefits of good oral hygiene and oral health as part of general health care.
Oral diseases are among the most common non-communicable diseases despite being largely preventable. Oral health is an important part of general health and well-being. It allows people to eat, speak and socialise without discomfort or embarrassment. Studies have shown links between poor oral health and diabetes, stroke, heart disease, lung disease and dementia. Poor dental function also results in a lower intake of nutritious food, more intestinal problems, increased drug intake and ultimately a lower life expectancy. Dental pain and infection impair cognitive function which may already be reduced in adults with a learning disability or older people, especially those who have dementia. Aspiration pneumonia is the fourth overall leading cause of death in hospitals. Many cases of bacterial pneumonia are caused by bacteria from the mouth or throat. Effective mouth care can help to reduce the number of bacteria retained in the mouth and therefore decrease the incidence of hospital and care home acquired pneumonias.
Care for people living with dementia is threaded throughout.
The format is interactive and each module contains links to additional resources.
All 3 levels have an assessment and successful completion will require a pass rate of 80%.
This resource is patient centred, and is mapped to Care Quality Commission standards. It also follows best practice as part of Essence of Care and NICE guidance. All the recommendations are based on Delivering Better Oral Health – An evidence-based toolkit for prevention – 4th edition by Department of Health and the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry, published 2021.
In order to access the Improving Mouth Care programme, you will need an elfh account. If you do not have one, then you can register by selecting the Register button below.
To view the Improving Mouth Care programme, select the View button below. If you already have an account with elfh, you will also be able to login and enrol on the programme from the View button.
To register for the Improving Mouth Care programme, select the ‘Register’ button above. Select the option ‘I am a care home or hospice worker’ then enter your care home / hospice name or postcode and select it from the options available in the drop down list. Finally enter your care home / hospice registration code and select ‘Register’. You may need to see your employer to get this code.
If your employer does not have a code, then they need to contact the elfh Support Team. The Support Team can either give the employer the Registration Code or arrange a bulk upload of all staff.
Access to elfh content is available to all social care professionals in England whose employers are registered with the Skills for Care National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC). Every employer providing NMDS-SC workforce information to Skills for Care has been given a user registration code for their staff. This code enables you to self-register for access to the Improving Mouth Care programme. Please contact your employer for more details about the registration code. For information about registering your organisation with the NMDS-SC your employer should access www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk or contact the Skills for Care Support Service on 0845 8730129.
If you have a registration code select the ‘register’ button above
The Improving Mouth Care programme is also available to NHS healthcare staff via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). Accessing this elearning via ESR means that your completions will transfer with you throughout your NHS career.
Further details are available here.
If you are not an NHS health or care organisation and therefore do not qualify for free access elfh Hub, you may be able to access the service by creating an OpenAthens account.
To check whether or not you qualify for free access via OpenAthens, you can view the eligibility criteria and register on the ‘OpenAthens’ portal.
If you are a HR, IT or Practice Manager and would like to register and enrol large numbers of staff within your organisation for access onto the Improving Mouth Care programme, please contact elfh directly.
For HR departments wanting to know more about gaining access to courses using an existing Learning Management System please contact elfh directly to express interest.
Please select the following link for more information on how to use the elfh Hub.