New e-Learning programme to support the transition of families from neonatal units to home

The Institute of Health Visiting and Tiny Lives Trust have worked in partnership with Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare to develop a new e-learning session for health visitors working with families to transition from neonatal units to home.

The e-learning session aims to raise awareness of the health visitor’s role in supporting sick and preterm babies. It is intended to complement existing e-Learning for Healthcare training programmes, which are referred to during the session.

The resource was coproduced in partnership with parents of babies who have been on neonatal units.

For more information about the resources, including access details, please visit the e-LfH website.

Go to e-LfH e-learning - Working with families to transition from neonatal units to home

New content added to Perinatal Mental Health e-learning programme

Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare (HEE e-LfH) has been working with the Institute of Health Visiting, the National Workforce Skills Development Unit at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, maternity and general practice leads and HEE’s Mental Health team to add new content to the Perinatal Mental Health e-learning programme.

The Perinatal Mental Health programme is designed to help educate and develop the workforce’s confidence and competence in caring for people with perinatal mental health problems. The planned updates to the existing e-learning programme are particularly timely, aiming to support key health and care colleagues working with pregnant mothers and new parents, during the additional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two of the six new e-learning modules were developed by the Institute of Health Visiting, in partnership with HEE, and look at:

Perinatal Mental Health: Health Visitor Assessment
Perinatal Mental Health: Health Visitor Interventions

Melita Walker, Mental Health Lead iHV, commented:

“Here at the iHV, we really do believe that there is no health without mental health! And so, we are absolutely delighted to be launching these modules during Mental Health Awareness Week.

“Perinatal Mental Health (PMH) is, to coin a phrase, “ everyone’s business” and perhaps now, more than ever, it is even more vital that all those who work alongside families understand the importance of perinatal mental health: What it is, why it matters and what they can do to support good family mental health and wellbeing.

“It has been a truly collaborative effort, in getting these modules ready to launch during Mental Health Awareness Week and we would like to thank all our partners in making this happen – including Sylvia Woolley, Catherine Lowenhoff, Judy Shakespeare, Toni Turner, colleagues at Health Education England and the National Workforce Skills Development Unit at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.”

The new content covers six sessions to complement the existing e-learning programme. Each of the six e-learning modules last around 20-30 minutes.

The following sessions are now available:

Introduction to Perinatal Mental Health 1
Introduction to Perinatal Mental Health 2
Perinatal Mental Health in the Antenatal Period
Perinatal Mental Health in the Postnatal Period
Perinatal Mental Health: Health Visitor Assessment
Perinatal Mental Health: Health Visitor Interventions

For more information about the Perinatal Mental Health e-learning programme, including details of how to access, please visit the link below:

Go to HEE eLfH Perinatal Mental Health e-learning programme

The link to this e-learning programme is also on the iHV e-learning resource page:

Go to iHV e-learning resource page

New content added to the Domestic Violence and Abuse e-learning programme

Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare (HEE e-LfH) has been working with the Institute of Health Visiting to add new content to the Domestic Violence and Abuse e-learning programme.

The planned updates to the existing e-learning programme are particularly timely due to the expected rise in domestic violence and abuse cases as a result of the considerable social and economic challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A leading domestic abuse charity in the UK has already reported a 25% increase in contacts after the start of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Alison Morton, Director of Policy and Quality at the Institute of Health Visiting, commented:

“We know that COVID-19 is putting pressure on all families and we need to heed the stark warning from other countries like China and Italy, as well as emerging data from the UK, which shows that domestic violence increases during “lockdown”. It is therefore vitally important that victims of abuse are identified and supported at this time when their needs may be hidden. We hope that these timely resources will be helpful for practitioners working with children and families experiencing domestic violence and abuse; the content has been developed by experts in the field to support best practice.”

The Domestic Violence and Abuse e-learning package aims to equip health visitors and nurses with the skills and knowledge to enable them to provide a proactive, responsive and safe service to families experiencing domestic violence and abuse.

The new content covers four new introductory modules to complement the existing sessions. The e-learning has been developed following a refresh of the evidence, policy and legislation on domestic violence and abuse. Each of the four e-learning modules last around 30-45 minutes.

The following sessions are now available:

Understanding domestic violence and abuse
Identification of domestic violence and abuse
Risk assessment for victims of domestic violence and abuse
Safety planning and support for families

For more information about the Domestic Violence and Abuse programme, including details of how to access, please visit the link below:

Go to HeEE eLfH Domestic Violence and Abuse e-learning

The link to this e-learning programme is also on the iHV e-learning resource page:

Go to iHV e-learning resource page

Free, open access to HEE COVID-19 e-learning programme

Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare (HEE e-LfH) has created an e-learning programme in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic that is free to access, without logging in*, for the entire UK health and care workforce, including those working in the NHS, the independent sector and social care.

The programme includes key materials to help the health and care workforce respond to Coronavirus.

The Coronavirus programme currently includes limited resources, but we will add more content in the coming days and weeks. The additional content will include new sessions and content curated from different sources such as existing HEE e-LfH sessions and materials from other organisations such as NHS England and NHS Improvement or the World Health Organization.

Content in the Coronavirus programme currently includes:

Essential Guidance from the NHS, Government and WHO
Infection Prevention and Control
Personal Protection Equipment
Critical Care Resources
RCGP learning
Invasive Ventilation
Intensive Care Medicine
Anaesthesia
Induction of International and Returning GPs
Statutory and Mandatory Training

*HEE e-LfH has removed the requirement to log in to access the Coronavirus (COVID-19) programme to make it as easy as possible for the health and care workforce to access the learning resources. However, be aware that accessing the content without logging in means that your learning activity won’t be tracked and you won’t create a learning record. If you wish to have a learning record to demonstrate your compliance you will need to have an e-LfH account and be logged in. You can register for an e-LfH account using any email address.

For more information about the programme, which is free for the health and care workforce to access without the need to register, visit www.e-lfh.org.uk/coronavirus.

Go to HEE e-LfH Coronavirus e-learning

Another HEE resource, SCRIPT e-learning, is now freely available to anyone with a NHS email address. For more information visit www.safepresciber.org, email [email protected] and or follow @safeprescriber on Twitter.

New e-learning programme on caring for people bereaved through pregnancy loss and baby death

iHV is proud to be a partner collaborating on this important national work – National Bereavement Care Pathway: Supporting Parents for Pregnancy and Neonatal Loss.

This month sees the launch of the e-learning modules on the e-Learning for Healthcare platform. The training programme has been written to share the elements of good bereavement care. Please take time to review these modules and to share their existence with everyone you work in your teams, GP practices, Children’s Centres and communities.

The first two sessions of the new National Bereavement Care Pathway: Supporting Parents for Pregnancy and Neonatal Loss e-learning programme are now available. The training programme has been written to share the elements of good bereavement care. It is being delivered by e-LfH’s team in partnership with Sands and a collaboration of other charities, professional organisations and people, including iHV, with first-hand experience of bereavement.

The programme will consist of six sessions and is divided into two courses:

Bereavement Care after Pregnancy Loss or Baby Death – Learning for All

These training sessions have been designed to provide support when talking to bereaved individuals. They offer suggestions and guidance about what to say and do and are suitable for anyone who might come into contact, in their work or home life, with a person bereaved through pregnancy loss or baby death.

Bereavement Care after Pregnancy Loss or Baby Death – Healthcare Professionals

This course is for healthcare professionals caring for newly bereaved individuals. Working through the themes of the National Bereavement Care Pathway, the course helps healthcare professionals understand the important elements of excellent bereavement care; it covers delivering bad news, memory making, post mortem and histology, ceremonies and services, discharge, aftercare, feedback and review.

You can access the e-learning on e-LfH here

Image credit: People photo created by yanalya – www.freepik.com

Health Education England’s Learning Hub

The Learning Hub will be a powerful new digital platform that will provide easy access to a wide range of education and training resources for the health and care workforce. It is being developed by Health Education England’s (HEE) national Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Programme.

The Learning Hub will be launched in Beta, early in 2020 with the following functionality:

A personalised homepage with a style that will be aligned to other popular platforms, providing a familiar web experience
An opportunity for individuals to contribute resources. Organisations will shortly be invited to contribute content to be available when the Learning Hub launches
Forums in which to collaborate and share useful resources. The forums will encourage discussions to take place around the content, and networks to form around areas of shared interest and act as a Community of Practice.

The Learning Hub is being developed using agile methodology in line with Government Digital Service’s (GDS) principles, which puts user research at the centre of the design and development. User research to date has been incredibly successful and, as such, the scope of the Learning Hub has been expanded to ensure the development responds to the feedback from users.

Following the launch of the Learning Hub early in 2020, development will continue to provide the platform users have said they want and need. During this phase of development, other existing systems including HEE’s e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) Hub will remain available in their current location.

For more information about the Learning Hub follow on Twitter: @HEE_TEL, email: [email protected], visit: telblog.hee.nhs.uk to read blogs about their journey so far or visit: www.hee.nhs.uk/tel.

Free PHE e-learning tools now available

Public Health England has launched new free All Our Health bite-sized e-learning sessions to improve the knowledge, confidence and skills of all health and care professionals in preventing illness, protecting health and promoting wellbeing.

The sessions cover some of the biggest issues in public health from childhood obesity to AMR and they contain signposting to trusted sources of helpful evidence, guidance and support to help professionals embed prevention in their everyday practice.

Access the free e-learning sessions on e-LfH here

Please note the iHV does not host the e-LfH site. If you experience any problems accessing the site contact e-LfH.

Children’s Oral Health e-learning programme now live

Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare (HEE e-LfH) has worked with the Faculty of Dentistry, the Royal College of Surgeons and UCL Eastman Dental Institute and Hospital to develop a new Children’s Oral Health e-learning programme.

This free e-learning programme provides information and advice about children’s oral health. It is aimed at parents, expectant mothers, early years healthcare workers, teachers, nurses, GPs and the public.

Children’s Oral Health Advice programme aims to help learners support children to maintain good oral health. It covers the main causes of tooth decay and simple actions that can be taken to prevent the problem. It also explains when a child’s primary (baby) and adult (permanent) teeth start to appear, and what you should do if a tooth is knocked out. By the end of the session users will have developed their knowledge of oral health and be more confident in providing children’s oral health advice.

The programme consists of one e-learning session that will take about 20 minutes to complete with a number of self-assessment questions throughout the learning which enable understanding of the key points to be checked.

Further e-learning sessions are planned for 2019 to support the understanding of children’s oral health advice for the health and care workforce.

For more information about the e-learning programme and for details of how to access it visit HEE e-Learning for Healthcare

Infant Feeding e-learning programme now live

A new e-learning programme to support education around the implementation of Baby Friendly standards in healthcare and public healthcare settings has been developed.

The programme is for healthcare professionals who have contact with pregnant women and new mothers. It aims to provide information about the importance of building close and loving relationships with baby during pregnancy and following birth, as well as information around breast and bottle feeding.

Topics covered by the session include:

Challenges and Culture
Importance of Breastfeeding
Importance of Love
Formula Feeding
Providing Unbiased Information.

This programme is not intended to replace existing training. Instead it is intended to complement training for those in facilities which are implementing Baby Friendly standards.

It has been developed by Health Education England, e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) and the National Infant Feeding Network (Yorkshire and Humber). Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative has also given their
support to the programme.

For more information about the Infant Feeding e-learning programme and for details of how to access the programme visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/infant-feeding/

The e-learning programme is available via the e-LfH Hub and the Electronic Staff Record.

Doctors launch ‘game-changing’ new e-learning tool to help identify muscle degenerative disorders

The lives of thousands of children who suffer debilitating muscle degenerative disorders could be dramatically enhanced as doctors launch a new tool that opens the door to treatment before conditions fully take hold.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), in partnership with the John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre in Newcastle and the Great North Children’s Hospital, has developed an e-learning tool which aims to help healthcare professionals identify the early signs of muscle disease.

The new e-learning resource aims to equip health professionals with the information to identify conditions such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at the earliest opportunity. This will in turn, allow treatment to begin much earlier which not only has the potential to enhance mobility and prolong life but will also allow family members to be tested to assess the risk of the condition being passed on to future generations.

In the UK, more than 70,000 people have Muscular Dystrophy or a related condition. Doctors say this new resource, aimed at health visitors, GPs, nurses and physiotherapists will void the gap of knowledge that currently exists and will finally enable awareness to catch up with the science.

With this early identification, they hope that more children can take advantage of the revolutionary new drugs on offer which have the potential to greatly enhance muscle strength, improve quality of life and survival. Currently, science is well ahead of awareness so this new tool could be a game changer for patient outcomes.

Go to RCPCH website to find out more

Go to RCPCH Compass Online Learning Tool - learn the signs and help improve the quality of a child’s life today

The e-learning, which is aimed at healthcare professionals such as nurses, GPs and physiotherapists, comprises clear and easily understandable video footage of normal and abnormal development and provides clear action points at five key stages of motor development that will give the user confidence in knowing how to identify a child at risk and what to do next.