In care and health settings, allowing training to lapse can have serious consequences for staff and those they support.
Common Renewal Intervals by Subject
The length of time that most clinical subjects need to be updated can vary from basic life support, which normally is updated on an annual basis, to manual handling, medication administration and infection control which are generally updated on a 1-2 year cycle. The first aid at work certificate lasts for 3 years but many employers update the practical skills every year.
Factors That Shorten Refresh Dates
In addition to the set calendar dates for the various clinical subjects that are covered by your clinical training courses, there are several triggers that can prompt earlier retraining. Incidents, near-misses, changes in role of staff members, updated clinical guidelines from professional bodies and poor outcome from inspections all can prompt immediate retraining of staff members.
Records You Need to Keep
For each member of staff record the name of the course, completion date, expiry or review date and name of trainer. This information should be stored in a place that can be quickly retrieved. The employer must be able to provide evidence to show that the training has taken place, is up-to-date and is relevant to the employee’s role.
Building a Simple Refresh Schedule
Google Doc) for your team to manage their clinical training courses. Consider using a single row for each member of staff and a separate column for each training subject. You could colour code the rows to indicate if their training is Current, Due within 90 days, or Expired and then review monthly. More on Clinical Training Courses can be found at www.tidaltraining.co.uk/clinical-training-courses.
It means that no one can rely on someone else remembering their training needs!