Publications approval reference: C0237

Education and training framework for staff supporting the NHS response to COVID-19

15 April 2020, Version 1

Purpose

As part of the NHS response to COVID-19, we want to support healthcare staff from across NHS and independent sector organisations to identify the skills required to deliver safe care for our population, providing easy access to education and training in a single place.

This Education and training framework supports both NHS and independent sector organisations to assess the current skillset of their clinicians, identify the additional skills required to perform new roles depending on the care setting and then deliver relevant training or refresher training where required.

How to use the framework

Organisations working together locally will need to follow these three steps (illustrated in the following diagram):

• Plan services. Organisations will need to plan how local services are going to be used. For example, will independent sector organisations provide urgent elective capacity to enable NHS organisations to focus on COVID-19 or will they provide additional critical care facilities? Training requirements will vary according to local plans for service configuration and the skills of clinicians currently working in those organisations.
• Map skills and training requirements. Working from the local plan for services, the number and competencies of clinicians required can be assessed by team leaders. Following this assessment, individual clinicians can use the competency self-assessment tool to identify the skills they require to perform new roles and whether new training or refresher training is required before moving into a new role.
• Deliver training. After team leaders have identified essential competencies and matched clinicians to new roles, clinicians will need to complete online and face-to-face training. Online training is available for free to all care providers via Health Education England’s e-Learning for Healthcare platform. Some safety critical competencies may need to be confirmed before clinicians start work in new roles, for instance through demonstration/supervision of competence. This must be delivered locally.

Planning services, mapping skills, delivering training diagram

Open and accessible training resources

When individual clinicians have identified skills gaps or necessary refresher training, they can access the following free training resources:

All training offers:

• Self-assessment tool
• Health Education England (HEE) e-Learning for Healthcare
• Nationally co-ordinated PPE training

For COVID-19 critical care training:

• HEE e-Learning for Healthcare: staff working in critical care
• HEE e-Learning for Healthcare: staff being up-skilled or redeployed to critical care

For acute/medical care training:

• HEE e-Learning for Healthcare: independent sector nurses supporting the NHS

Final checks: individual clinician pathway

NHS and independent sector organisations must work together to resource and provide their clinicians with the training required to safely deliver care while protecting themselves and their families. Where staff are temporarily working in new organisations, this needs to include compliance with minimum levels of statutory and mandatory training. Individual clinicians and their teams should check this pathway to ensure all the required training has been completed before any staff member moves into a new role.

Contact us

If you have any questions or if there are any gaps in the training available which you or your teams require, please email us at nhsi.covideducationaltraining@nhs.net