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eLearning and the NHS
The NHS is an ideal candidate for elearning. It is vast (1.2 million employees), geographically dispersed, has a diverse workforce, huge customer base and quite possibly the widest range of skills of any organisation in the UK.
The cost benefits, scalability, flexibility, collaboration opportunities and ease of access to up-to-date essential information make elearning particularly relevant to the NHS.
At Academee, we have found that NHS clients are now ready to embrace increasingly sophisticated elearning and blended learning solutions designed to meet their specific needs. For example, Chris Stephenson, Director of HR, IT and Workforce Development at Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust, says that:
"eLearning is valuable in the NHS as it supports the key aspects of our employees development needs - flexibility and 24/7 access. Without elearning and the opportunity it provides to create blended learning solutions, NHS ability to deliver creative solutions would be severely curtailed."
As an organisation, the NHS is used to working in partnership with external suppliers and selecting these through competitive tender processes. We are beginning to see NHS Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities forming learning partnerships. These not only enhance purchasing power but also benefit individual learners by offering increasingly wide ranges of learning options and collaboration opportunities.
The introduction of the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) helped raise standards of IT competency amongst NHS staff, and the NHS Information Authority (NHSIA) also provided over 600,000 NHS staff with basic IT skills training via an online learning solution. This means that the majority of NHS staff now have the skills in place to benefit from elearning.
The most successful NHS elearning programmes are developed in association with a range of key stakeholders - suppliers, senior management, learning and development managers, IT specialists and end users. Unions such as UNISON also have a network of lifelong learning advisors to advise and support members. Evaluation, adopting a user-focused approach, ensures each programme's continued success.
Since the Department of Health established a key policy target that all NHS organisations should have an elearning strategy in place by June 2003, many NHS elearning initiatives have been launched. Some have failed, but the NHS is learning from these failures.
The recently launched NHS Institution for Innovation and Improvement will promote a culture of lifelong learning for all NHS staff. The Institution will work with NHS organisations and communities to develop effective learning systems that accelerate organisational and individual growth and change. It will also connect with global leaders of learning in healthcare and other industries to identify the best methods and translate these for NHS learning.
There is now a real awareness within the NHS of the benefits of elearning and blended learning, and an increasing understanding of how to achieve these benefits - which, as NHS customers, is good news for all of us.
Dr Ian Hutt
Head of Learning Solutions
Academee
ian.hutt@academee.com
This article appears in the October 2005 issue of E.Learning Age magazine.
eLearning's cost benefits, scalability, flexibility, collaboration opportunities and ease of access make it particularly relevant to the NHS.
