News story

Totara supports 350,000 NHS staff through COVID-19 with Think Learning

Brighton, UKLearning NewsTotara

World-leading talent experience provider Totara has delivered critical learning technology solutions to over 40 NHS Trusts through the COVID-19 pandemic so far, together with Think Learning as a specialist healthcare LMS provider and a Platinum Totara Alliance Partner.

Think Learning is a leading Totara Learn supplier to the UK healthcare sector with around 25% (350,000 employees) of NHS employees in England now accessing a Totara learning platform supported by Think Learning.

The flexibility of Totara’s Talent Experience Platform (TXP), combined with Think Learning’s healthcare knowledge and solution-focused expertise, means that NHS Trusts have been supported to make rapid changes in delivering vital training to their staff. This includes innovative support around integrating virtual classroom capability, developing online e-form processes to support PPE testing and risk management tracking.

Tim Newham, Development Services Director at Think Learning, said: “The last 18 months have been incredibly tough for people in healthcare - and we know that many are still struggling. We're privileged to have been able to support healthcare organizations, and to have grown fast (we're more than twice the size, with more than twice the clients, than we had in early 2020), partly for those same difficult reasons, but also because we've been lucky to work with great clients who have been pushed to deliver more, faster, better, with learning technology.”

The Totara platform has allowed the NHS to rapidly onboard thousands of volunteers and medical staff returning to work to deliver the vaccination program during 2021. This was achieved not only by the flexibility of the platform, but also with Totara’s waiver of subscription threshold charges to support NHS efforts in the fight against COVID-19.

Maged Fahmy, Chief Commercial Officer at Totara, said: “We are extremely proud of the fact that so many NHS Trusts chose Totara as their learning platform of choice throughout the pandemic. We are also proud to partner with Think Learning, who have proven their expertise in the healthcare sector time and time again, and whose engagement with NHS Trusts to support healthcare workers during COVID-19 has been critical.”

Will Bladon, Digital Skills Lead at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have used our Totara learning platform to deliver support and training to the whole Somerset Integrated Care System, contributing to the Somerset region being one of the most effective nationally at delivering vaccinations. In addition to our substantive staffing pool, we have been able to provide learning resource access to an additional 1,485 people, and to track their progress and report on their readiness so that they could be deployed to staff our vaccination centers. As we move into the third phase of vaccination, we are now adding further workers that focus on flu and children’s vaccinations, so the maintenance and reskilling of colleagues throughout this winter and into June 2022 is an ongoing piece of work supported by our Totara system.”

Ruth Thomas, Associate Director, OD, Learning and Development at Gloucester Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The pandemic resulted in a huge change in the way we provide training, and we were ably supported by Totara and Think Learning in making this happen. In particular, our COVID-19 vaccination training requirements needed staff to be able to access a complex range of learning. Staff, many of whom were new to the NHS and who needed to be rapidly deployed, were able to clearly see what training they needed to complete, and we could easily track their progress and monitor compliance.”

Throughout the pandemic, Totara was adopted by an additional 44 healthcare customers in 2020 as organizations sought agility in their learning platforms to rise to the challenges posed by COVID-19.

To find out more, take a look at Totara’s full range of healthcare customer stories, or visit the Think Learning website.

About Think Learning

Think Learning is a fast-growing UK Totara Partner, providing platform and consultancy services in a range of sectors. They specialize in developing Totara and associated learning and talent technologies with end-user engagement at the heart of their approach. They are the largest supplier of Totara to the NHS with over 40 NHS customers. 

Think Learning specializes in creating award-winning learning experiences in high-stakes public and private sector organizations, including NHS Trusts in the prestigious Shelford Group, such as King’s College Hospital and Cambridge University Hospital Trusts as well as South London and Maudsley and Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. In particular, they are experts in NHS compliance