Trust wins national e-learning award

The Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust has beaten off competition from Sony Europe, Tesco Bank and Jurys Inn to win a national award for the success of its online learning management system (LMS) for staff.

The Trust and Kallidus, the LMS company it works with, struck gold at the e-Learning Awards in London.

They won the Best Learning Management System Implementation category at an awards ceremony attended by around 550 guests and experts from across the industry.

The Trust has reported significant improvements in e-learning since switching to Kallidus in 2013.

Trust staff use a system called STAR, a ‘one-stop shop’ where they can access, complete and track all their mandatory and optional training from any internet-enabled device.

This significantly reduces the need for face-to-face learning, where training venue costs, travel and time away from work can have an adverse effect.

The judges said the project was “a fine example of a straightforward but effective implementation of an LMS in a challenging environment”.

They said: “The project has delivered significant benefits to the Trust and has attracted praise from independent regulators such as the Care Quality Commission and partners such as Skills for Health.

“Kallidus has significantly improved learning outcomes, increasing access to e-learning and saving vital clinical and administrative resources that are now invested in improving quality of care.

“In year one 8,300 staff working hours were released back into the organisation, with 4,300 hours of clinical and nursing time reinvested back into patient care.

“Resource efficiencies improved substantially, with £1million cost savings for patient-facing staff estimated in year one, compared with classroom learning.

“Within 14 months, learning compliance had increased to 86% (up by 21%), meeting or exceeding nearly all Trust compliance targets.”

The awards are recognised as the leading, independently judged scheme recognising excellence in e-learning and learning technologies in the UK.

Darryn Allcorn, the Trust’s director of workforce and development, said: “We were thrilled to win the award alongside Kallidus, especially bearing in mind the names we were up against.

“Since implementing Kallidus, we have seen a significant increase in e-learning completions over traditional face-to-face sessions.

“In fact, in the first year of using Kallidus, the use of e-learning increased by 25%.

“We can now cater for different learning needs across the workforce and staff are much clearer about what they need to achieve and when.

“Learning is much more transparent and accessible, and it is improving performance across the Trust.”

Kallidus picked up two other awards at the event.

Rob Caul, chief executive officer of Kallidus, said: “These awards reflect the huge efforts our team make in delivering outstanding solutions and the benefits that are achieved in working in true partnership with our clients.”