Locala Community Partnerships deploys user-friendly learning platform to save staff time

Locala Community Partnerships provides NHS community services to over 400,000 people in Kirklees and beyond. They provide care and support at home and in clinics, schools and health centres with a team of health visitors, district nurses, therapists and health promotion experts.

The Challenge

With 1,300 managers and staff offering health services in a range of facilities and home-based care situations, Locala needed a more efficient way to book and handle training and facilitate skills assessments. Locala was previously using an LMS accessed through a web portal to try to meet their needs in terms of training and assessment. Health professionals rarely have much time to complete training outside of their regular duties, making easy access and user-friendliness a necessity for any system.

We also needed a simple system where everyone could log on easily and have a self-service approach to taking training and assessments, without needing to involve administrators all of the time.

– Mubashiar Farooq, Transformation Manager (HR & OD) at Locala

Evaluation Process

Locala’s management team investigated alternatives to their present LMS and soon discovered Totara, among others.

Totara Learn offered a more customised, user-friendly approach. Our clinical staff don’t necessarily use a lot of information technology tools all of the time, so it was important for us not to scare off our employees again with the new system. In fact, it’s so easy to use, employees can actually personalise how they’re using it.

– Mubashiar Farooq, Transformation Manager (HR & OD) at Locala

The Totara Learn Solution

Totara’s self-service training management capabilities were implemented for Locala, by Chambury Learning Solutions, a Totara partner specialising in the NHS and healthcare. All initial implementation, configuration and training phases are now complete.

While the legacy Oracle system was maintained, custom scripts were developed to allow for reporting results to go to the Totara system. Single Sign-On functionality was added later. Locala is continuing to implement Totara according to a scheduled plan and is now planning to handle its eLearning functionality through Totara.

The Results

• 1,400 Employees Being Trained to Use the New System. Totara’s user-friendliness helped facilitate training of managers, who have gone on to train their departmental staff.
• Better Use of Strained Public Healthcare Resources. Locala’s professionals are able to book and record assessments without coordinating with administrators, improving organisational efficiency.
• Single Sign-On Makes It Easier for Staff to Access the System. Reduced need for Locala’s IT staff to handle password resets or login issues allows for greater focus on organisational
• IT priorities.
• A joined-up learning, e-learning and assessment platform that can support Locala’s future growth plans.