Stakeholder Briefing – Issue 27

Key Messages and links to 6^th January 2021

Welcome to Health Education England’s stakeholder bulletin.

In this bulletin we will provide:

• COVID-19 latest updates
• Overview of HEE education and training news
• An update from your regional office

HEE COVID-19 LATEST UPDATES:

We have created a COVID-19 update webpage for October 2020 onwards. It will provide guidance and information from HEE, which applies to all students and trainees. This webpage also includes HEE COVID-19 Surge Guidance.

COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca elearning sessions now available

HEE elearning for healthcare worked in partnership with Public Health England and NHS England and NHS Improvement to develop the COVID-19 Vaccination elearning programme.  The elearning programme is designed to provide the health and care workforce involved in the national COVID-19 vaccination programme with the knowledge they need to confidently promote high uptake of the vaccine and deliver the vaccine programme effectively.

The programme consists of a core knowledge session, the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 Pfizer-BioNTech session, the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca session and accompanying assessment sessions for each.

All those undertaking this elearning should complete the core knowledge session as this is designed to provide essential knowledge about COVID-19 and the key principles of immunisation needed to deliver the vaccine.  Learners should then complete both vaccine specific sessions as these provide more detailed information including how the vaccine works, how it should be stored, prepared and administered and any contraindications, precautions and potential vaccine reactions.

The assessment sessions should be completed after each session.

For more information about the COVID-19 Vaccination programme, including details on how to access, visit the elfh website.

To date there have been more than 770,000 session launches of the elfh COVID-19 vaccination programme with more than 28,000 nursing and midwifery professionals, over 21,000 medical and dental professionals and over 7,000 students already completed the elearning sessions.

Vaccination of frontline health and social care workers including students and trainees on placement

The healthcare worker operational guidance with standard operating procedure has now been published, Coronavirus >> Operational Guidance: vaccination of frontline health and social care workers. Please note this includes temporary, locum or ‘bank’ staff, including those working in the COVID-19 vaccination programme, students, trainees, and volunteers who are working with patients. 

Healthcare Learners’ Coronavirus Advice Guide

The Healthcare Learners Coronavirus Advice Guide aims to serve as an aid to healthcare learners to provide them with useful hints, tips and advice to use during the current COVID-19 pandemic and to protect against other infections. The advice given in this document has been collated from questions posed to HEE and experiences shared by healthcare learners working on the front line

HEE TRAINING AND EDUCATION CORE PRIORITY UPDATES –

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

New initial education and training standards for pharmacists approved by the General Pharmaceutical Council

HEE has welcomed the new initial education and training standards for pharmacists recently approved by the General Pharmaceutical Council. These standards will ensure that skilled pharmacists will play an integral part in the future healthcare workforce.

Interim Foundation Pharmacist Programme update – Extension of application deadline

The Interim Foundation Pharmacist Programme launched in Autumn 2020 to support pre-registration pharmacists whose training and registration have been disrupted by the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. This programme is also helping to accelerate pharmacist early years’ education and training reform, in line with the NHS People Plan for 2020/21 and with the new initial education and training standards for pharmacists recently approved by the General Pharmaceutical Council (see above).

The programme has been designed to ensure that most of the learning happens in the workplace while providing a host of online resources, to help participants balance their personal development with their work commitments, and to prepare for the delayed GPhC assessment. The GPhC has recently confirmed that the assessment dates will be in March 2021 and in the Summer.

All participants are given access to OpenAthens, the SCRIPT elearning programme for Foundation Pharmacists and a library of resources on the NHS Learning Hub.

We are happy to announce that the closing deadline has been extended until 10^th May 2021: Please encourage provisionally registered pharmacists to register for the programme and find out more on the IFPP website.

In addition, the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) will have two further cohorts of the Foundation Pharmacist Pathway, starting in January and April 2021, to support provisionally registered pharmacists who work in community pharmacy, primary care and Health in Justice. More information can be found on the CPPE website: https://www.cppe.ac.uk/career/fpp20-21/foundation-pharmacist-programme

Interim Foundation Pharmacist Programme – New Lunchtime Q&A drop-in sessions

We will be running lunchtime Q&A drop-in sessions for provisionally registered pharmacists and their educational supervisors starting this month:

IFPP Drop-in session for provisionally registered pharmacists
Tuesday 12 January 1-2pm
Join via MS Teams on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting

IFPP Drop-in session for educational supervisors
Tuesday 19 January 1-2pm
Join via MS Teams on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting

The programme team is sending regular 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.

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

BMJ and Health Education England shortlisted for the HSJ Partnership Awards 2021

BMJ & Health Education England is delighted to announce that “Evidence on Demand: Best Practice Bring Evidence to the Bedside” has been shortlisted for Best Educational Programme for the NHS at the HSJ Partnership Awards 2021, recognising their outstanding dedication to improving healthcare and effective collaboration with the NHS.

Following the most testing period for the healthcare sector in recent history, this year’s awards reinstate the essential role of private and third sector organisations in strengthening the healthcare system. Being shortlisted for a Partnership Award has ensured that our lifesaving project is nationally recognised, learned from and upscaled.

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

Medical Problems in Pregnancy elearning updated

Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked with the Wellbeing of Women charity to update the Medical Problems in Pregnancy elearning programme.

The programme is primarily designed for internal medicine trainees but will also be of use to others in ACCS (Acute Care Common Stem), obstetrics and anaesthesia and allied health professionals.

Every year a small number of women in the UK die in pregnancy or the puerperium. The main causes of maternal death are medical complications including cardiac disease, neurological disease and sepsis.

Trainee physicians only encounter pregnant women occasionally and may not have a working knowledge of either the dynamic physiology of pregnancy or the effect this has on interpretation of examination findings and laboratory investigations. This may lead to a delay in the timely and appropriate management of the acutely unwell pregnant women.

The six sessions within the module have been reviewed and updated to represent current knowledge and guidelines. They are:

• The physiology of pregnancy
• Medical disorders complicating pregnancy
• Prescribing safely in pregnancy
• Clinical assessment of the pregnant patient
• Communication and co-ordination of care for the complex obstetric patient
• Common and important clinical scenarios: sepsis and thromboembolism

Each session includes interactive exercises, case examples and short videos.

More information and access details are available on the Medical Problems in Pregnancy programme page.

The programme evaluation survey is now live and available within the updated sessions.

Updates to End of Life Care (e-ELCA)

A new session on The Management of diabetes at the end of life has been added to the HEE elfh End of Life Care for All (e-ELCA) elearning programme.

This new session explores the prevalence of diabetes, therapeutic approaches and practical decision making in patients who are approaching the end of life.

Five sessions have also been updated within the programme.

These sessions are:

• ‘I don’t believe you, I’m not ready to die’ – Managing denial
• End of Life Care for people experiencing homelessness
• ‘Please don’t tell my husband’ – Managing collusion
• Communicating the plan of management and care
• Talking with ill people: Considering the surrounding environment

New All Our Health Population Screening session now available

HEE elfh has worked in partnership with Public Health England Screening to develop a new population screening session as part of the All Our Health elearning programme.

Population Screening covers the basics of screening, highlighting its importance and benefits, and gives health and care professionals information on the following NHS screening programmes:

• Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
• Bowel cancer
• Breast cancer
• Cervical
• Diabetic Eye
• Pregnant women and newborn babies:
  • Sickle cell and thalassemia
  • Infectious diseases in pregnancy
  • Fetal anomaly
  • Newborn an infant physical examination
  • Newborn bloodspot
  • Newborn hearing
• Young Person and Adult (YPA)

The bite-sized session also encourages colleagues to actively raise awareness of screening to individuals and gives advice on reducing screening inequalities by making individuals aware of the NHS screening programmes and supporting them to make informed choices about screening.

Colleagues are also signposted to other relevant resources and tools such as an introduction to population screening which is also available via elearning for healthcare.

For more information or to access the free elearning session, visit the All Our Health programme page. 

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

“We must share knowledge more to allow digital transformation”

Faculty of Clinical Informatics – webinar on knowledge sharing – 14 January 2021 12-1.30pm

The session, presented by Ben Bridgewater (CEO at the Health Innovation Manchester, an Academic Health Sciences Network), and Chaired by Sue Lacey Bryant, (National Lead for NHS Library and Knowledge Services, directorate of Innovation and Transformation at Health Education England), will explore the enablers and barriers to sharing know-how and why it holds the key to achieving digital transformation in order to improve outcomes for patients.

If you’d like to attend, please sign up via Eventbrite.

View upcoming webinars scheduled for 2021 or what recordings of previous sessions on the FCI platform.

Is your organisation in the South looking to develop your Digital, Data & Tech talent pipeline?

Come and join our webinar on 4th Feb for NHS organisations and NHS managers who are interested in finding out more about the NHS Graduate Digital, Data, Technology Scheme (DDaT).

DDaT has been designed for high potential graduates interested in a fast-track career in Digital, Data and Technology space. The purpose of the scheme is to develop the NHS Digital, Data and Technology leaders of the future. Register 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.