Making sure people who work in NHS trusts have the training they need to support people with learning disabilities

We have been commissioned by the South Regional Health Education England Intellectual Disabilities programme to find and share best practice in training people who work in NHS Trusts to support people with learning disabilities. The aim is to support their development to help them achieve better outcomes when working with people with learning disabilities.

NDTi are working in partnership with people with lived experience (both self-advocates and family carers) to identify good practice examples of training tools and approaches and to explore what is needed to ensure learning is put into practice. We are doing this by:

• reviewing the relevant evidence-base through literature searches and information requests

• using surveys and hospital visits to identify what training is provided to staff and what they need to help them put this into practice in their day to day work

• benchmarking existing training models against the Learning Disabilities Core Skills Education and Training Framework

• undertaking an international consultation exercise to reach agreement on what is needed for good quality learning disability training for NHS Trust staff and to ask for good practice examples

Following analysis of the data collected the team will make a series of recommendations for training models and for what else can be done to support NHS Trust staff to apply what they have learned. We will then work with HEE South ID programme stakeholders to develop a regional awareness campaign to highlight and share the findings and resources from this work.

We have written three reports about what we found through our literature review:

1. A main report discussing the findings of the studies reviewed. This contains full details of the search strategy and the references of the articles found and cited, along with an evidence grid summarising the articles reviewed.

1. An easy-read summary.

1. A summary of our literature review report.

This literature review was used more widely to inform the next stages of our project.

We conducted surveys with hospital staff to find out more about the content, format and experiences of learning disability training for the non-specialist workforce in the South of England region.

Available resources:

• A full report of the staff surveys

• A summary report of the staff surveys

• An easy-read version of the staff surveys

Our planned hospital visits were replaced with face-to-face online interviews with hospital staff. This report presents the findings of these interviews.

Available resources:

• Findings from hospital interviews

• An easy-read version of the hospital interviews

A modified International Delphi survey was undertaken to identify, and reach consensus on: the aims, design and content, and ways to maximise the impact, of learning disability training programmes for NHS Trust staff in England.

Available resources:

• Delphi Study Discussion Paper - how learning disability awareness training for NHS Trust staff can have the maximum impact
  
• A summary of the Delphi Study Discussion Paper
• An easy read version of the Delphi Study Discussion Paper