A new Forth Valley College course could become an essential training tool for care and key workers across Scotland, who have to deal with the ‘new normal’ for healthcare which has evolved from the Coronavirus epidemic and lockdown.
Course coordinators have now completed the content development stages of the Digital Skills Transforming Care course - a new online training course that will establish digital health and care as a key learning priority for staff, with the potential to reach 3,200 care at home staff who are currently employed across the Forth Valley region – and have now started online focus groups with course partners, students and experienced care home staff to gather valuable feedback on the new qualification.
The Forth Valley College project - a joint partnership between FVC, Time for You Care, Able Health Care, Clackmannanshire and Stirling Health and Social Care Partnership and Falkirk Health and Social Care Partnership - was selected following a highly competitive Scotland-wide bidding process run by the Scottish Funding Council and the official online launch of the course will be held on Tuesday 16 June.
The new course aims to ensure that digital skills are integrated into the training of care staff across the Forth Valley area to meet the demands of a changing sector and an investment of £64,744 from the Scottish Government’s College Innovation Fund has helped to support the development of the project.
Gordon Manson, a Health and Social Care Lecturer in the Department of Care, Sport and Construction, and Project Coordinator of the new course, said: “We are now at the quality assurance stages of its development and part of this is gathering feedback. In keeping with the spirit of the times, we have now started online focus groups and already we are starting to see lots of positive reactions coming through from them.
“We are quickly approaching the finishing line for this and appreciate enormously the collaboration between our health and social care partnership organisations during a truly unprecedented time. They have been key in making sure this course comes together in a way that will future proof their employee’s skills and knowledge for years to come and that of the health and social care workforce more widely.
“In the current climate that COVID-19 has brought to the health and social care sector, this training is invaluable for care at home workers and our partners are recognising this as a way of upskilling their employees to be modern practitioners, that are ahead of the curve when it comes to digital skills.”
Detailed update blogs for the innovative new digital health care course are also now available on the Scottish Funding Council website and will bring those interested in the new Digital Skills Transforming Care online course up to speed with the latest developments and provide information on how applying for and being accepted on the course can enhance professional best practice.
The blogs can be found here http://www.sfc.ac.uk/news/blogs/Blog-80854.aspx
Forth Valley College staff have been at the forefront of the new course which was soft launched on Wednesday 18 March by Ivan McKee MSP, Scotland’s Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation.
At the time, Sarah Higgins, Curriculum Manager the Department of Care, Sport and Construction, said: “We are very excited about the launch of this new course which will help train the next generation of care providers and furnish them with the latest skills needed to provide health care in the digital age.
“The introduction of this new course will also increase the opportunities for care service users to engage with digital technologies, which could support them in living more independently in their own home for longer.”