Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust.
About the Trust
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHR) run two hospitals, both with emergency departments serving clinics across North East London.
They have 6,500 clinical and non-clinical staff and volunteers caring for a diverse community of 750,000 people, making it one of the largest in the country. Services include neuroscience, cancer and acute stroke specialist care wards.
The Challenge
Since a visit by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2013, the Trust’s compliance with the Core Skills Training Framework (CSTF) has been under scrutiny, along with the processes in place across the organisation.
The Trust had multiple methods for their 6,500 staff to view, manage and book training which caused confusion and placed a huge strain on HR and Learning and Development (L&D) resources at the hospitals. The L&D team were inundated with phone and email enquiries to book staff on mandatory training. There was no central policy or framework for learning and development to provide guidance to staff on requirements.
Separate Learning Management Systems (LMS) and compliance reporting systems resulted in excessive time being spent creating reports to make decisions on compliance, staff training and development.
The absence of a management hierarchy in legacy systems led to a lack of accountability and engagement for the completion of mandatory and personal development training. Training costs were escalating as a result of a high DNA rate.
The Solution
The Trust recognised the need for a user friendly LMS, that was flexible enough to be customised to healthcare specific needs. They initiated a rigorous selection process, which resulted in a partnership with Think Learning to implement and support Totara Learn.
The requirements were:
- boost efficiency and compliance
- accessible and easy-to-use
- reviews and reporting
BHR recognised Think Learning’ market-leading healthcare LMS experience, and the ability of Totara Learn to manage all of their needs including compliance training, elearning content, classroom training, nurse and midwifery revalidation, personal performance reviews centralised and line manager reporting.
Think Learning and multiple stakeholders in BHR collaborated to deliver essential improvements to the organisation’s learning technology infrastructure, as well as incorporating their end-to-end training and reporting process into Totara Learn.
A clear organisational hierarchy was developed to enable managers to support, manage and report on their teams’ learning. This management hierarchy was bulk uploaded to the LMS, known in the organisation as BEST (BHRUT Education & Staff Training).
The management hierarchy (BEST) was vital to the configuration of the Personal Performance Review created using the e-appraisals functionality in Totara Learn.
The Results
More than 4,600 clinical and non-clinical staff accessed the system in the eight weeks after go live, responding positive to the new system. Notably, staff commented on the ease of use of core learning and development processes, including viewing, managing and completing mandatory training.
What’s more, the Trust have increased their compliance rate (across all Core and Essential Training Skills) from 84% in March 2016 to 92% in November 2016. This increase has been attributed to the ease of access to training and the transparency of requirements.
The Trust have estimated a significant annual cost saving since the implementation of the Totara Learn. This saving is made up from:
- Time saving: Easy access for staff, means no time is spent managing forgotten user names etc.
- Transparent requirements: Staff know what courses they need to complete and by when. They are no longer spending time completing the wrong course or following incorrect processes.
- Increased use of eLearning: Now that it is simpler to access and complete, it is more widely utilised. Also proving beneficial for course management with more efficient course attendance administration.