Learning at Work isn’t just about career progression and qualifications, it’s also about knowing what to do to be able to do your job properly, even relating to legal requirements and policy.
Mandatory training is expected of all staff to ensure we are aware of essential aspects of working life such as health and safety, fire safety, data protection, information governance and safeguarding. Some of these have statutory and legal requirements for an organisation to prove colleagues have undertaken this training and today we’re going to focus on safeguarding.
Lesley Harris (above, right) is DHU’s Senior Nurse and Named Nurse for Safeguarding Children whilst Julie Tomlinson (above, left) is Lead Nurse for Safeguarding Adults.
The pandemic has changed our approach
Lesley said: “The way we deliver our training has understandably changed over the past few years and we both believe in face-to-face learning. The pandemic has changed all of that and the growth we’ve seen within DHU means that we can’t physically see everyone across all of our sites, so we have developed bespoke training for different levels of staff.
“Our training is bespoke, depending on the type of role. Level One is aimed at non-clinical staff such as corporate teams who have no patient interaction. Level Two is for mainly non-clinical colleagues who see patients including receptionists, Healthcare Assistants and some of our 111 colleagues. Then there’s Level Three, the most in depth training, for all clinical staff.“
“We adopt a Think Family approach combining child and adult safeguarding held over Teams that we want people to take on an annual basis,” added Julie. “Statutory guidelines state that there should be a minimum of 16 hours of training over a three-year period. Due to such a wide range of subjects, a rolling annual training package has been designed for DHU. This includes a hot topic, perhaps an area of safeguarding where there is an identified knowledge gap or a highlighted issue, which changes each year whilst enabling us to refresh the basics on a more regular basis to keep it fresh.
“It’s everybody’s responsibility. We all need to know what to do if we suspect abuse, neglect or in the case of Prevent, that vulnerable people are being subjected to radicalisation. That’s why annual training enables us to keep our people up to date on the latest guidance, trends and information across a subject matter that is constantly evolving.”
A brand new concept to some
The training Julie and Lesley offer is supplemented by a wealth of reading material, links to official websites and fact sheets. It’s sent to all participants before undertaking their education. The safeguarding team has recently designed a “Train the Trainer” course , to enable NHS111 pathways trainers to deliver a basic safeguarding introduction to new starters in their initial pathways training. This is to give new starters a better understanding of safeguarding when they complete their mandatory training.”
Julie added: “Some of our new starters may have never worked in health care or have any understanding of what safeguarding is all about. To these people it’s a brand new concept. We need to make sure they know the basics to equip them with the knowledge to spot those ‘red flags’.
“Safeguarding is the ‘Golden Thread’ that should run through any patient encounter and we all need to be alert. We need our colleagues to understand and recognise whether they are talking face to face or on the telephone if there are signs of abuse or neglect and then how to raise their concerns. The pandemic has left us with a lot of work to do in terms of domestic abuse and isolation, and we need to be able to spot the signs.”
“It’s mandatory for a reason,” explains Lesley. Safeguarding is part of all our contracts and CQC inspections. It is part of our duty of care to our patients, each other and the wider health system to ensure we are doing the best we can for our patients. Therefore ensuring your safeguarding mandatory training is up to date is of paramount importance.”
If you work at DHU and have any questions about your Safeguarding or would like to know more about safeguarding in general, please email dhu.safeguarding@nhs.net. If you work at DHU, you can also visit the safeguarding section of the Intranet by clicking here and then after logging in, select useful links and then 'DHU' – 'Governance' - 'Safeguarding'.
Publish date: 19 May 2022