NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is a Special Health Board which is responsible for the education and training of the healthcare workforce in Scotland.
The Scottish Infection Prevention and Control Education Pathway (SIPECP) provides a national approach to infection prevention and control.
NES was commissioned by SIPCEP to develop a suite of eLearning modules and associated learning materials to support Scottish health and social care staff and students to continuously improve their knowledge and skills around infection prevention and control as part of their role.
NES wanted a solution that would:
The NES team partnered with Aurion Learning to design and develop a suite of tools and online learning resources across 19 modules with topics including Chain of Infection, Hand Hygiene and Management of Care Equipment.
We also facilitated a series of content planning workshops to explore the core teaching areas of each module whilst supporting NES with instructional design advice.
SIPCEP is made up of three learning layers:
The SIPCEP eLearning pathway has been developed to be relevant to all Scottish health and social care staff and students with a range of scenarios and activities created to ensure learning is applicable to all staff roles.
Learners work with their line manager to create personalised learning pathways that are relevant to their role, providing flexible, relevant and engaging learning at the time of need.
A wide range of content and interactivity types were developed for the SIPCEP programme including:
The eLearning pathway was deployed to NHS Education for Scotland’s learning platform with a range of downloadable job aids and offline versions of the learning materials developed for use in classroom sessions.
In the first year of the launch of SIPCEP, 50,000 NHS Scotland staff from 555 different job roles enrolled with an additional 7,000 college and university students enrolling in SIPCEP elearning modules.
Statistics for 2019 are currently being compiled however first-look statistics are proving to be even more impressive.
SIPCEP has been extremely well received within the NHS Scotland community. Find out what NHS Scotland staff have had to say as follows:
NHS Education for Scotland is leading the way in demonstrating a national approach to infection prevention and control with the introduction of the Scottish Infection Prevention and Control Education Pathway (SIPCEP). The pathway will enable all staff to contribute to a healthcare culture in which patient safety related to infection prevention and control is of the highest importance. Caroline Lamb, Chief Executive, NHS Education for Scotland
The introduction of SIPCEP is a timely and positive step in the direction of recognising the variation required by different roles in terms of infection prevention and control and providing flexible access to education. The pathway recognises that one size does not fit all and the layers are tailored to suit learning requirements across the varied roles within healthcare. Emer Shepherd, Head of Infection Prevention and Control, NHS Lanarkshire