London South Bank University (LSBU) today launched the first Institute of Vocational Learning for Health and Social Care in England (Wednesday 9 June). The new Institute will assist healthcare trusts in their workforce reviews and help deliver significant savings.
From left to right: Denise Linay, Royal College of Midwifery; Lesley Buckland, Director of the Institute of Vocational Learning; Richard Griffin, Senior Research Fellow at LSBU; Paul Donaghy, Head of Widening Participation Unit at the Beeches Management Centre; Professor Judith Ellis, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Care and Dr David Foster, Deputy Chief Nurse in the Department for Health.
With the aim of improving the effectiveness of healthcare training programmes and ultimately the quality of patient care, the team of healthcare professionals from the Institute will provide a research and consultancy service. They will provide support and guidance around training and learning pathways, evaluating the impact of training and introduction of new roles and disseminating good practice.
The Institute of Vocational Learning for Health and Social Care will offer research and consultancy which will help to ensure training is effective and will support workforce changes that will deliver substantial cost savings.
The University has a notable reputation for training healthcare professionals offering the widest range of Continuing Professional and Professional Development courses in London; and was also rated first for adult nursing education in NHS London's Higher Education Quality Assurance Assessment in 2009.
One key service provided by the Institute's experts will be to measure the impact of learning on performance and the patient experience. Other services include:
- Providing research and expert support for learning;
- Supporting the development of innovative learning;
- Providing an evaluation service;
- Supporting dissemination.
The Director of the new Institute Lesley Buckland says: "Healthcare service providers are facing huge financial and service challenges; it is critical that the Higher Education sector applies its expertise and works in partnership to find innovative solutions to these difficulties.
"Training can be effectively applied to the workplace to further enhance the treatment that patients are receiving. This underpins the aims of the new Institute."
Posted: 9th June 2010
