Chapter six of the End of Life Care Strategy identified the need for "a cultural shift in attitude and behaviour related to end of life care". The strategy clearly identified that this needs to take place across the whole of the health and social care workforce.
The size of the workforce who deliver end of life care is estimated to be approximately 2.5 million. The number of staff who work in specialist palliative care services, is estimated to be around 5,500. However, it is difficult to capture information about staff not working in NHS organisations, especially within the independent care sector. With the implementation of the personalisation agenda, which allows individuals to receive payment to directly purchase their own care, a wide range of small providers have recently been established. We also have to consider the education and training needs of informal carers and family members who deliver care at the end of life . The numbers of individuals with caring responsibilitiesare often not known
Furthermore, identification and engagement with small individual providers may be difficult at both national and local level. Many independent organisations employ a range of temporary staff and, again, ensuring education and training opportunities for these staff may be difficult.
Additional discussions are underway with the Royal Colleges and other professional bodies to ensure that undergraduate courses for medical and nursing staff along with Allied Health Professionals, incorporates appropriate education relating to end of life care issues.
Access to education and training is also a challenge. The NHS Constitution (January 2009) pledged that employees will have access to ‘appropriate training for their jobs’ and that they should have support from their line manager to undertake this. However, in some NHS organisations, managers are struggling to release staff to attend statutory and mandatory training. The use of Quality Markers for end of life care will be a valuable mechanism for commissioners in order to build some recommendations about competencies and access to training for staff, into service specifications.
For non-NHS organisations, the Quality Markers can also be implemented as part of the contracting process to set out core requirements around the competencies of staff within organisations who provide care to people at the end of their life e.g. care homes.
Communication Strategies are currently being developed for the three workforce development projects below. This will give an opportunity to disseminate products and fliers at a wide range of events over coming months.
This project, undertaken in partnership with Skills for Care and Skills for Health, has just completed a 3-month consultation with field test sites from health, social care, and education providers, along with volunteer groups.
A guide "Common core competences and principles for health and social care workers working with adults at the end of life" has been produced with the overarching principles and competencies for End of Life Care. Further work will take place until March 2010 to clarify specific levels of competencies for individual staff groups. Two national events will launch the report and showcase the work of the field test sites. They will be held in London on 26th June 2009 and Manchester on 3rd July 2009. These events are almost fully subscribed. For more information about these events please contact marie@eventpro.co.uk.
Public Website: www.e-elca.org.uk
e-ELCA is currently being rolled out to all health and social care professionals. A small number of sessions are also freely available to volunteers and clerical and administrative staff on an open access website. For further details see ‘Access the e-learning’.
Dr Bee Wee, the Clinical Lead for this Project, led a workshop, held in January 2009 to plan the curriculum. Development of the e-learning project modules and learning materials is currently progressing well.
Work is also underway to explore issues around availability and access to e-learning materials for staff that are not professionally registered. Within the NHS the materials can be incorporated into Electronic Learning Management Systems already configured in most organisations.
Recent advice submitted to Strategic Health Authority (SHA) Workforce Leads have advised that SHA workforce plans should take account of the e-learning modules and other initiatives.
A one-year project is underway to develop communication skills training for the workforce involved in end of life care. Twelve pilot sites have been recruited to participate in the project and they will explore and develop local communication skills training. The pilot sites are: Berkshire East Community Health Services, Dorset Cancer Network, East of England Cancer Networks, NHS West Essex, Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Network, North East London and South East London Cancer Networks, St Gemma's Hospice Leeds, University of Teesside, LOROS Hospice Leicestershire & Rutland and St Luke's Hospice Plymouth. The pilots will run until September 2010.
Contact Details for Communication Skills Project: katie.lindsey@eolc.nhs.uk
21 January 2010 sees the launch of a free e-learning resource for health and social care staff involved in end of life care.
Developed by e-Learning for Healthcare on behalf of the Department of Health and the National End of Life Programme, around 100 modules in this ground-breaking resource will be launched at a national event in London.
Similar events will be held in your region between January and April. The e-learning resources will provide huge numbers of staff with a valuable opportunity for bite-sized learning whatever their care setting or care role and the regional events themselves will be very hands-on. They could be suitable for all those in senior positions in a position to influence and support learning.
These include
By attending you will:
Further information on the e-ELCA (End of Life Care for All) project is available on the e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) website
This Core competences for end of life care guide for training health and social care staff, to support the National end of life care strategy, aims to improve the skills and knowledge of the estimated 2.5 million people whose work brings them into some contact with those approaching death.
The document is the first outcome of a three-strand workforce development programme – a suite of e-learning resources developed by e-Learning for Health will be launched next January and a communication skills programme will be available later in 2010.
(NHS National End of Life Care Programme, 25th June 2009)
Effective and sensitive communication between staff and patients, their relatives and carers is fundamental to high quality end of life care. This promotional leaflet for the communication skills project covers 12 pilot site initiatives across England that explore and help develop a more skilled and confident workforce.
(National End of Life Care Programme, January 2010)
This is the e-ELCA Flyer announcing the 2010 lauch.
(eLearning for End of Life Care for all (e-ELCA), 21 January 2010)
This e-ELCA Project briefing outlines how to find the e-learning sessions available, key aims, issues being addressed and the core courses for assessment, advance care planning, communications skills, symptom management and integrated learning through case studies.
(E-learning for end of life care (e-ELCA), January 2010)
This document provides the underpinning framework of core National Occupational Standards (NOS) for the end of life care workforce - from health care professionals (medics, nurses and AHPs), managers and social care workers through to care assistants and ancillary staff. These standards can support workforce development, training and education, and the development of new and enhanced posts and roles.
(National End of Life Care Programme & Partners, January 2010)
This document provides guidance on knowledge sets to improve consistency in the underpinning knowledge learnt by the adult social care workforce in England. It specifies what they are and describes the learning outcomes expected.
(Skills for Care, January 2010)
