How can health and social care employers help staff development?

Professional learning and development are essential parts of any career in health and social care, and leaders across both sectors want to create a culture of lifelong learning among their staff.

Despite this, 57% of health and social care staff don’t feel they have opportunities to take training to further their career and just over two-thirds (68%) don’t feel they have enough training to do their job, according to the results of a recent Guardian survey.

How can employers in health and social care improve access to training and development? What examples of innovative technologies are there and how can health and social care professionals fit training around work and other commitments? These were some of the questions addressed by health and social care experts at a Guardian roundtable, supported by Health Education England’s Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Programme.

Participants agreed a number of barriers exist that stop health and social care staff from accessing online training resources. “There are really simple issues around logistics, money and time,” said Dave Anderson, head of digital at the Social Care Institute for Excellence. He added that those factors impact on the way employers make decisions on whether to provide face-to-face or online training.

Almost nine out of 10 respondents to the Guardian survey, which was funded by Health Education England in advance of the roundtable, said they had some training for their job delivered online. The survey itself ran online from 15 February to 24 May 2016 and was completed by 664 health and social care professionals.

Related: The future of the NHS is in the hands of its workforce

Winning hearts and minds

Is e-learning well regarded among the health and social care workforce? Dr Alasdair Strachan, director of medical education and a consultant anaesthetist at Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS foundation trust, thinks not. “E-learning has got a bad name because it’s seen as a tick-box exercise,” he said. One doctor who took the survey agreed; when asked about training available at their organisation, they said: “I have only ever really been provided with training that ticks boxes for professional regulators and quangos rather than anything which genuinely promotes excellence or advancement in the field.”

Strachan cited a recent case where a manager from one hospital ward sought help over poor outcomes, high rates of sickness, MRSA cases and falls among older patients. In addition to e-learning, the trust ran face-to-face training, which was more in-depth. Strachan credited this training package with changing the culture on the ward.

He’s not the only one to place value in this type of learning. Respondents to the Guardian survey said they would like a mix of training methods. Face-to-face training was particularly valued because it gave professionals the opportunity to discuss and practise what was being taught and because it was delivered at an allocated time during a working day.

This was a point that Rosalind Godson, professional officer in the health sector at Unite the union, also highlighted. She said that all NHS organisations had an amount of compulsory training and that most of it was online. Staff complain, however, that they are not given time in working hours to do it and so “approach e-learning in a bad mood”.

Strachan went on to say that at his trust e-learning is done within work time, because he had aligned it with the needs of the organisation and patient care. He added that he had worked with managers to work out how to deliver it. “One of the things we’ve been poor at in the past is having robust conversations with the trust. Having those has helped us,” he said.

Interaction where professionals discuss best practice can also happen online, as Emma Scales, programme lead for TEL, pointed out. We Communities, which includes WeNurses and WePharmacists among others, is a group of individuals who work in healthcare and host Twitter chats to connect people and share information, ideas and expertise. Charlotte Murray, director of delivery and policy at the Tinder Foundation, added: “Digital is an enabler for sharing. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” She asked whether existing resources could be pooled and shared from a central repository. Scales added that a hub of training resources was a possible solution that was being looked into by the TEL programme. Respondents to the survey, meanwhile, were keen on an easy-to-access platform and clear modules that allow them to customise their training for their needs, and fit timings around their schedule.

Where’s my Wi-Fi?

Among those that work in social care, however, the situation is different, according to Jim Thomas, programme head for workforce innovation at Skills for Care, which works with adult social care organisations in England to help them develop their workforce. One of the problems he faces is social care professionals not being able to access Wi-Fi at work. He said only 25% of care homes have good quality Wi-Fi systems. “How do you make it possible for people to use their own technology as part of a learning approach?” he asked. “Social care learning needs to be able to work on smartphones.”

Challenges around technology are short-term, though, according to Vic Rayner, executive director at the National Care Forum. What is more important, she agreed, is thinking about how to make sure future learning is tablet and phone-enabled. She said that in social care, there is a revolution of understanding as to how technology can be used in care planning and supporting professionals to better interact with the people they work with.

According to the results of the Guardian survey, however, IT issues are not the main barrier to completing more training; although for those who said they were a problem, lack of access to computers, poor or no Wi-Fi and lack of up-to-date technology are the main sticking points. Instead, 68% of respondents said their workload was too high.

This was something that resonated with Sharon Aldridge-Bent, senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University and a programme lead at the Queen’s Nursing Institute, who said: “District nursing is on its knees. One of the reasons district nurses can’t access technology is because their workload is too much.” Rayner added that there is a two-tier approach to learning within adult social care with staff not expected to learn outside of core hours while those without a permanent contract had to fulfil training requirements in their own time.

Anderson, who has spent 30 years working in interactive learning and design, added that more work needs to be done around the way coursework is designed and delivered. Jason Brewster, senior programme lead for digital learning at the NHS Leadership Academy, meanwhile, questioned how to create a learning culture. He asked: “How do we design a culture that enables participants to learn and get organisations to see how it impacts on patient care? I think we have the technology and the content but we don’t have the culture yet.”

Anderson added that with increasing pressure to support people with long-term conditions at home, a huge part of the workforce is the unpaid general public who need access to the same information to learn how to care for their relatives.

Beyond the written word

Another barrier to online learning in both health and social care is illiteracy. Participants pointed out that in trusts there are cleaners who can’t read. Others said that there is a clear divide between those who are comfortable with online learning and those who are not, with one participant saying they had come across people who “didn’t know how to switch a computer on”. Aldridge-Bent added that among the existing workforce “people are struck by technology that’s being thrown at them. For some people, it’s like a different language. How do we target that group of people?”

Rayner suggested video could be highly effective as a training resource.

Participants agreed that when it comes to implementing effective training and development for the health and social care workforce, challenges remain. There is good practice, however, and a vast array of high-quality online resources, which need to be signposted to everyone working in health and social care.

Citing the Amazon shopping experience and how the site suggests to users what to buy next, Rayner said e-learning has to follow a similar approach and “get under the skin of a learner”. She added: “I don’t know how far away we are, but the appetite would be there for it. Professionals would see that it understands them and what they need next.”

At the table

David Brindle (chair) Public services editor, the Guardian

Sharon Aldridge-Bent Senior lecturer and Queen’s nurse, Buckinghamshire New University

Dave Anderson Head of digital, Social Care Institute for Excellence

Jason Brewster Senior programme lead for digital learning, NHS Leadership Academy

Emma Scales Programme lead for technology enhanced learning, Health Education England

Rosalind Godson Professional officer, health sector, Unite the union

Germain Kent Workforce development manager, Hampshire county council

Charlotte Murray Director of delivery and policy, Tinder Foundation

Dr Dirk Pilat Medical director for e-learning, Royal College of General Practitioners

Vic Rayner Executive director, National Care Forum

Kate Cuthbert Academic lead in health and social care, Higher Education Academy

Dr Alasdair Strachan Director of education, Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS foundation trust

Jim Thomas Programme head for workforce innovation, Skills for Care

Maria Toro-Troconis Lecturer, learning technology, University of Liverpool

This content has been supported by Health Education England’s Technology Enhanced Learning Programme (whose brand it displays). All content is editorially independent. Contact Matt Nathan (matt.nathan@theguardian.com). For information on debates visit: theguardian.com/sponsored-content

How can health and social care employers help staff development?