Catherine Robertson

West Lothian Council has recently changed the role of their personal care workers (PCW) to form an established re-ablement team. The focus of this group is to provide a re-ablement model of home care and supply a new crisis care service. This is in line with the Joint Improvement Team (JIT) initiatives and part of the ‘Reshaping Care for Older People’ agenda.

As part of this I plan to evaluate the impact of recently undertaken re-ablement training to identify future learning needs. This will enable continuous development of the service.

Re-ablement training was delivered and presented by a multi agency team consisting of senior managers, service manager, specialism’s within community health care partnerships. (CHPC) This was run over a two day period to PCW, community and hospital based NHS staff. The aim of the training was to provide a confident skill based staff team who would work alongside service users and their carer(s) to provide person centred care to promote independence using set goals. In addition, this training also sought to promote inter-agency working by sharing knowledge and skills within role and remit.

This research aims to establish whether training enabled staff to carry out the task in their new role as re-ablement workers.  It also seeks to involve staff in identifying future learning needs in relation to providing continuous improvement in a re-ablement service.

I feel it is important to value our workforce, ensuring that they are supported in their new role, thus increasing their self esteem. We must guarantee that our workers have bought into this change in order to move the service forward.

Download a copy of the report “Analysis and review of staff training regarding care for older people” through the IRISS Learning Exchange.

May Knowledge Exchange Event