Lothian Care Academy – Dementia Training Pilot

I want to take the time with this blog today to shine the light on the wonderful work being done by the Lothian Care Academy. The Lothian Care Academy was commissioned by the four Local Authorities in Lothian, Integration Boards and NHS Lothian. This ambitious programme aims to deliver high-quality training and education by working collaboratively with key stakeholders with the goal of creating a consistent, safe, and best value training offer within the Health and Social Care sector across Lothian, which will attract, develop, and support staff throughout their career. The Lothian Care Academy currently have 3 main areas of activity which are training and education: career pathways and recruitment and retention. I would like to highlight some of the specific input and work I’ve provided to the dementia training pilot.

It was highlighted very early on from collaborative discussions with care homes and care at home representatives that dementia training featured highly as a training requirement that they were keen to prioritise. It was recognised that there was already some good quality dementia training being delivered in some of the care homes and care at home services, but this wasn’t consistent across all health and social care partnerships. It was also recognised that because of the challenges health and social care had/were facing due to Covid-19 that it had been difficult to prioritise training. If training was happening during that time, it was likely to be in relation to induction for new staff members. This was similar within health boards across Scotland.

As soon as it was feasible to start delivering training again, we found that a lot of training and education had moved to various online platforms. This new online world was something we all had to adapt to during the pandemic, from hospital appointments being online and virtual visiting for people to school teachers delivering online lessons to their classes. There was a lot of positives about this new way of working but I was mindful of the benefits of being in a classroom and learning with other people and the impact this had on people’s understanding of dementia and how to implement their new skills and knowledge into the areas they are working in. As an Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Nurse Consultant within my health board, I lead on dementia training across the organisation and within my role of delivering education I have experience of witnessing the benefits that the rich and meaningful conversations that happen during these training sessions have for individuals and I was concerned that this wouldn’t be replicated the same way on-line. Thankfully the dementia pilot group felt the same. Although the group was able to recognise the benefits of online learning, they were keen where possible for training to be delivered in a face-to-face environment.

The next stage of pulling together the dementia training pilot involved what content would need to be included within the training sessions. In Scotland we have the Promoting Excellence Framework which details the knowledge and skills that professionals from health and social care services should be aiming to achieve in relation to the role they have in supporting and working with people with dementia, and their families and carers. The framework allowed us to identify what level the training should be at for the staff groups working within care homes and care at home services. As a starting point we decided to focus on the skilled level of the framework. There was a lot of time spent discussing what content should be included and as a group we appeared to be going down a route of developing something from scratch. However, from the wise words of D’Angelo “Don’t reinvent the wheel, just realign it”. So that’s exactly what happened. Throughout NHS Lothian we deliver a comprehensive Skilled training session to a variety of health professionals working across acute and community services. These sessions are well evaluated and meets the standards set out in the Promoting Excellence Framework. It made perfect sense to take this Skilled Level training and adapt it for the Care Academy Pilot.

There were some challenges around trainer resources and as a group we were keen to get at least the pilot sessions delivered and I agreed to deliver the sessions to 1 care home and 1 care at home service. Whilst I was setting up the training resources and sessions the Lothian Care Academy project team worked hard at pulling together data and evidence which could be used to evaluate the pilot and help inform any changes which may be needed once the pilot was extended. As part of the information gathering staff from these care teams where keen to also include some experiential learning into these sessions. The training for the pilot happened over 1.5 days which consisted of a 1-day face to face session which included the knowledge and resources required of skilled level training. The second day was a half-day session which was experiential learning and allowed staff members to use the age simulation suit and carry out some everyday tasks. The age simulation suit allowed participants to experience what it may be like to have an aging body and their other senses were impacted by a visor which replicated different diseases of the eyes and they also had their hearing impaired with the use of headphones and loud noises. These sessions where well received and the feedback demonstrated empathy and allowed participants to think in a more person-centred way when supporting the people, they support and work with.

The Lothian Care Academy and the clinical education team have now successfully recruited a full-time dementia trainer who will now be able to take this pilot forward and share across the four health and social care partnerships. This will ensure that more staff from care homes and care at home services have access to dementia training which will increase their knowledge and skills which will lead to improved care outcomes for people with dementia, their families and carers.

The dementia training pilot is only 1 small part of the work the Lothian Care Academy are doing. The team are working hard to take forward their ambitious programme. If you would like to hear more about the team, please visit their website Lothian Care Academy – Care Homes (nhslothian.scot)

Contributor

Siobhann Blair, Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Nurse Consultant @SiobhannP2