A new scheme called the Clinical Learning Environment (CLE) Strategy has been developed for the East of England to make sure learners benefit from clinical learning placements and to support professionals in sharing knowledge.
The strategy was authorised by Health Education England (HEE) and aims to provide “structure, direction and ambition to enhance the quality of CLEs for all learners” and focuses on CLE for non-medical programmes with clear commonalities, such as nursing, midwifery and allied health.
Ultimately, the vision is for the East of England “to become the leading region of excellence in practice-based learning” and “to enable the region to create dynamic, innovative, compassionate and inclusive CLEs that will shape and grow the future health and care workforce for the region.”
The strategy begins by noting that “its success is dependent on system and region-wide collaboration and robust partnership working between all
stakeholders and stakeholder organisations, including universities, social care sector, private, independent and voluntary care organisations (PIVO) and NHS providers.”
Three key pillars form the strategy, each underpinned by two workstreams.
The first pillar is “Developing a culture of inclusive and compassionate learning”, underpinned by embedding principles according to those values along with systems of support encompassing RePAIR (HEE’s 2018 report focusing on Reducing Pre-registration Attrition and Improving Retention).
The second pillar, “System working and structures” is underpinned by cross-system collaboration and partnership working, in addition to “effective and efficient systems for placement utilisation and information sharing”.
The third and final pillar is “educational excellence” and is underpinned by growing capacity to support learning along with making the most of simulation, innovation and technology.
It notes that the East of England comprises of six integrated care system (ICSs), their recently formed integrated care boards (ICBs) and six regionally based Higher Education Institutions (HEI) partners providing health and social care programmes. In addition, a wider network of placements for learners from 20 HEIs is provided across the region.
For the purposes of the strategy, learners described what they want, such as a supportive and non-judgemental learning environment; opportunities for multi-professional learning; hands-on experience; protected learning time; better communication for future newly qualified practitioner proficiencies; and electronic patient record system access and training.
It goes on to identify actions and desired outcomes in line with each pillar.
“Developing a culture of inclusive and compassionate learning will actively raise awareness of and engage intersectionality within the learner community, validate learner experiences and perspectives and challenge indirect and direct discrimination in the learning environment,” the strategy states. As part of this, approaches to supporting practice learning will be co-created with learners, patients, educators and education partners to ensure all voices are heard. “These inclusive approaches will be integrated with the existing frameworks and training and included within supervisor and educator training and support.” Compassionate approaches to learning are to promote wellbeing and remove barriers arising from anxiety whilst also promoting retention, and best practice is to be recognised, shared and celebrated.
With regards to system working and effective partnership working, “commitment from all partners will ensure effective communication, collaboration and information sharing”. Learner feedback is to be shared with all partners to enable a coordinated and impactful response to enhancing quality and effective organisation of learning. “Consideration will be given to creating learning academies with partner organisations,” the strategy adds, “to provide a frame to further support and embed partnership working.”
Finally, education excellence is to be developed through “developing skills and capacity of educators, enabling education teams to engage with partners actively and effectively in curriculum development, and to take an inter-professional approach to enhancing the existing culture of learning.” Innovation for simulation and virtual placements through the pandemic is to be continually developed with new approaches embedded for placement allocation “whilst ensuring coherence, relevance of learning and the maintenance of established learner support systems.”
The strategy adds that at a system level, all ICSs in the region have “collaborative action plans in place to enhance the clinical learning environment, with action owners and key performance indicators to monitor performance against”. Their transformation plans are to “reflect the priorities of the system in meeting the needs of the population”, and each plan is to be led by a Clinical Expansion Lead directly employed by each ICS and funded by HEE for 12 months.
View the strategy in full here.
