An NHS team who have delivered care home training to thousands of staff across the Tees Valley are showcasing their successes to date.
The Trust’s team has trained around 5,700 carers from across care homes in the area.
Since being formed in 2017, the North Tees and Hartlepool Education Alliance team have completed more than 800 training sessions. These have been delivered to around 50 care homes across Stockton, Hartlepool and the surrounding area.
The training, which aims to help care home staff improve care, includes expert support and advice on a range of key topics. These include:
- End of life care
- Dementia and delirium training
- Hydration and urinary tract infection prevention
- Falls awareness
- Oral health
- Respiratory
- Recognising deterioration and sepsis
- Stoma care
- Nutrition and the malnutrition universal screening tool
Who is the training for?
Care home staff are trained, both virtually and face-to-face, to use the national early warning score (NEWS). It is a way of both monitoring residents’ health and measuring residents who are acutely ill. This information is then passed to community clinicians to aid their assessments and diagnosis.
The team includes clinical educators and support staff, respiratory specialist nurses and oral health promotion advisors from the Trust, the falls prevention teams from Stockton Council and Hartlepool Council, as well as staff from Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust and Alice House Hospice in Hartlepool.
Andy Cotton is an education support officer in the team. He said: “The team have demonstrated what can be achieved when organisations come together to help improve care for our community.
“Since the team was first formed, we have carried out hundreds of training sessions to many thousands of carers across our area. We’re helping keep them informed and educated.
“This training has undoubtedly improved the health of our population and reduce hospital admissions.
“All of the care homes we have worked with have been absolutely outstanding in the way they have approached the training. Staff have been enthusiastic to develop their knowledge and to do everything they can for their residents.
“We are really proud to have not only worked with them but with our health partners and local authorities to develop such a fantastic programme.”
North Tees and Hartlepool Education Alliance is commissioned by NHS Tees Valley.
For more information about training at our Trust, visit our training and education page.
