Oxleas records the 2000th NHS TAP Trainer
Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust is one of only six mental health trusts in the country to have achieved an 'excellent' rating for the quality of the mental health and learning disability services it provides to people in Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham. In the fast changing mental health care environment, skilled and accurate use of clinical records systems is central to maintaining the highest standards of patient care and clinical practice. Like most community and mental health trusts in London, Oxleas uses the RiO IT system for recording, managing and retrieving patient records. This new system allows the Trust to drive forward a standardised, faster, safer approach to all aspects of patient care from referrals through to discharges and communication between teams. The Training Foundation's TAP Learning System is playing a vital role in supporting the Trust's aim to provide the best mental health and learning disability services in the country.
Responsibility for planning, organising and delivering IT training to more than 2000 staff across 50 sites spanning the three boroughs falls to IT Training Manager Diane Corrie and her four-strong team. As well as delivering classroom based training, the IT trainers regularly leave their Bexley headquarters to provide bespoke, ad hoc support to individual teams and wards across the sites.
"Ninety five per cent of Trust staff have to use the system and it's essential to their jobs, patient care and the reputation of the Trust that they are able to use it proficiently," says Diane. "We hold a huge number of patient records on the system and each patient's care history has to be recorded accurately and meticulously so that any mental health professional, in hospital or in the community, can track the care timeline."
Mental health care is stringently regulated. Reporting requirements, including waiting times, are becoming increasingly complex and regular upgrades to RiO reflect this. For Diane and her team this means continuously updating staff skills and training materials to ensure that best practice is sustained.
"Working in conjunction with our colleagues in Learning & Development we have to ensure all new starters -around 30 every month -receive mandatory systems training within an acceptable timescale," says Diane.
"Then two to three times a year we need to train new intakes of doctors on how to use the system, often at short notice. On top of this we have to provide additional training to all system users -and that's the vast majority of staff -whenever there are upgrades, plus skills enhancement workshops and training to address the specific learning needs of individual teams. Identifying and tackling skills gaps is essential to the reporting process."
Consistency of learning experience across a range of functional roles and competence levels is vital, but challenging and this is where TAP has had a significant impact. Diane knew that TAP was not only the training standard of choice within the NHS, but increasingly sought after across public and private sector organisations.
"In an environment where swift response to change is of the essence, the ability to standardise training design and delivery through the TAP methodology has been invaluable," explains Diane. "What we needed was a set of generic resources -script, slides, objectives, handouts -for all our training courses. The TAP course provided us with the knowledge and skills needed to upgrade our existing material, to be adaptable for the future"
By the end of September 2008 the entire team will hold the TAP Training Delivery Skills qualification. Senior IT trainer Craig Hill, who completed his Certificate in July 2007, explained that although the TAP style of training was completely different to anything else he had experienced, it had been highly effective. "The course really made me think and connect with the learners. It gave me confidence as a trainer and provided excellent results in raising learning standards."
Craig is not alone in experiencing a confidence boost from the course. With a structured framework to follow and armed with a range of questioning techniques, the training team feel in control of training sessions and better able to promote interaction, which is translating into improved learning outcomes.
"Asking people the right questions at the right time aids the learning process because people have the opportunity to discuss what they've learned with their colleagues and are therefore more likely to remember the learning point," explained Senior IT trainer Annette Martin. "It's an excellent and logical way of delivering training."
The TAP methodology is also proving to be eminently adaptable to a whole range of training needs. For example a major upgrade to the system, scheduled for early 2009, presents the IT Training team with the challenge of ensuring that all staff are familiarised with new functionality. Because of the scale of the task, a number of RiO 'champions' have been elected to support the training process across the Trust. The TAP model, both for design and delivery, will provide the framework to equip them with the necessary coaching skills.
Diane completed the TAP Training Design and Development course in early 2008, which gave her a very different perspective on the design process.
"I realised that you don't have to design each new course from scratch. It's possible to design a complete course, give it to a trainer and then apply the same structure to any subject matter and include or exclude material. It saves so much time, as well as giving us that vital consistency across every course and with every profile of audience."
With all trainers delivering to the TAP standard, Diane and her team have been awarded TAP silver Partner status, an endorsement that is displayed with pride.
"It shows that we are committed to upholding the highest training standards, which is also a reflection of the Trust's commitment to providing excellence in mental health care," says Diane. "We use the logo on as many promotional and course materials as possible and the certificate is up on our wall for everyone to see!"