Before you book Clinical Training Courses for your staff, it’s better to start off by getting to know your team members first so that you book the right training for your team!
List Every Certificate And Expiry Date
Start to list all of your staff members and their relevant training, including dates of completion and expiry of all certificates. You will quickly see the gaps for each member of staff, i.e. someone’s certificate for administering medication has lapsed 3 months ago or a new member of staff has been appointed and no training has been booked for them. This will also highlight who needs what training and when it is due.
Match Roles To Real Duties
Also remember, just because every member of staff are of equal value to your organisation, does not mean that they need the same amount of training. Write out the roles and day to day tasks of each member of staff. You will find that a Support Worker who does not administer medication on a daily basis does not need the same amount of training in this area as someone who does administer medication on a daily basis. It would be a waste of time and money to give the former the same amount of training as the latter.
Look For Patterns In Incident Reports
Read through your incident reports and near misses from the last 6 months. Look for any recurring issues. It’s easy to read through them all and say that your team could do with a bit of ‘more training’ but chances are that most incidents will have fallen into one or two specific areas. For example, in the last 3 incidents where staff members have responded to choking episodes, there has been uncertainty as to the best course of action. This is a specific area that you can book training for, as opposed to the more general ‘all staff could benefit from a refresher’.
Check Who’s On Shift
Are your trained staff working the shifts that you need covering? Look at your rosta (scheduling) and training list and check that your trained first aid staff are spread across all of your shift patterns including nights, weekends and bank holiday shifts. It’s surprising how many organisations find that all of their first aid trained staff work the same three days a week and are unavailable for the other three days. The solution is to train more staff on the shifts that you need covering.
Ask Staff Where They Feel Shaky
For the above points carry out a short survey of the team completing anonymously a simple rating scale for the confidence they have in completing tasks for the relevant skills for their roles e.g. managing a seizure, recognising Sepsis, Safeguarding etc. Sometimes people are more honest in completing a simple form than in discussing within a meeting and it can come as a surprise to the manager of the team of the results of such a survey. Look for trends and pattern in completing the survey rather than averaging out the results.
Decide Between One Group Or Several
One group or several sessions? Consider your shift patterns. A single group session is usually best if the majority of team members are able to leave at the same time and the content of the session is relevant to them all. However, if your team work 24/7 shifts, consider booking 2 or 3 sessions to ensure that at all times, someone is able to cover. Also, bear in mind that smaller groups are better for hands-on skills and for allowing time for questions and answers. A policy briefing style of session is not as suitable for hands-on clinical skills.
Know What Evidence You’ll Need Later
The training has to show that it has had an impact. So, the evidence of completion of a course is not enough. Other evidence of the link between the training and how staff use that in their practice is also required. Also, evidence of how the team have checked the staff member’s competence after the training and how any gaps in their knowledge and skills have been addressed after that.
The above points are intended to help create a clear awareness of your staff’s development needs prior to booking a clinical training course. Once you have completed the above steps you will have created a clear focus of the gaps within your team’s skill set and be able to source the most appropriate Clinical Training Courses.
