Hull University Teaching Hospitals overcomes logistical training challenges with Totara Learn

Hull University Teaching Hospitals operates in the city of Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

The Trust is a large teaching hospital which provides acute care for a local population of 600,000 and between 1.1 and 1.3 million people for tertiary services.

The Challenge

Hull University Teaching Hospitals initially started using Moodle in 2012 to support Junior Doctor induction. Every August and February, hundreds of Junior Doctors arrive at the hospital on the same day, and Hull University Teaching Hospitals found that the National Learning Management System (NLMS) was not as flexible as they needed it to be. They chose to develop their own LMS to give them more control over the learning process and overcome some of the main logistical issues present in the nationally available solution. When they decided to develop the use of their learning platform further, it made sense to build on the system’s capabilities with Totara Learn.

The Solution

Hull University Teaching Hospitals was originally working with another Totara Partner, but decided to switch to Chambury Learning Solutions in early 2018 as they were geographically closer and already support a number of other local NHS Trusts, so they already had a good understanding of the issues they face.

Their Totara Learn solution is used for both SCORM e-learning and face-to-face bookings, and the staff at Hull University Teaching Hospitals have found it significantly easier to use than the national solution. It gives them the flexibility to enrol new users (such as Junior Doctors) before they start, making the induction process much smoother.

Some e-learning modules sit outside the LMS (such as those on central NHS platforms), and are either linked through to the Totara Learn platform, or course completions are imported directly into Totara Learn. The administration staff have found this process to be straightforward and easy – a major contrast to the national NHS system which has very limited import functionality and required a lot of administrative time to operate.

“As a platform, Totara Learn is exactly what our organisation needs. With Chambury as our partner, we are really starting to get the most out of Totara and are excited to see where future development takes us.” – Daniel Bond, Education & Development Advisor, Hull University Teaching Hospitals

The LMS is also used for annual appraisals for all non-medical staff – around 7,500 employees. Managing performance and learning on the same platform gives Hull University Teaching Hospitals a much better overview of progress. HR Import is also used to keep Totara Learn synced with HR’s Electronic Staff Record (ESR) to ensure job and department changes are quickly reflected.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals like the fact that Totara Learn is open source, as they appreciate having the ability to allow their Totara Partner to make amendments to the system as and when they need them. This has enabled them to create a platform that suits their changing requirements, which is particularly important in the fast-moving healthcare sector.

The Results

There are currently around 7,500 active users of the LMS, including employees on payroll, agency staff and students on placement. A key benefit of allowing non-employees to use the system is that when Hull University Teaching Hospitals decides to hire students or external staff who have been working in the Trust, their learning activity automatically carries through, making it a seamless transition.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals believe that switching from the central NHS learning platform to their own Totara Learn solution means that they have been able to manage the system and keep it running smoothly for learners with fewer members of administrative staff than would otherwise have been required.

In the last 12 months, there have been approximately 83,000 e-learning completions and 28,000 face-to-face completions as well as 5,500 appraisals undertaken. Innovative delivery of training (for example, blending classroom teaching with online assessment) as well as easy management and reporting of data has helped improve compliance and allowed staff to access learning when and where they want.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals are also delighted with the services of Chambury Learning Solutions, saying that their support is consistently excellent, especially when it comes to technical assistance and fixing code.