When the Scottish Government published Shaping Bereavement Care – a framework for action for bereavement care in NHS Scotland – in 2011, one of the recommendations was that all NHS staff should receive education in bereavement and bereavement care at levels appropriate to their role.
The Scottish charity Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland was commissioned to develop a new e-learning programme to meet this need.
The programme, entitled Bereavement and Loss for NHS Scotland, consists of eight modules, and covers both general learning around understanding and responding to loss and grief, and specific teaching on topics such as bereavement following the death of a child, and bereavement following sudden death. There is also a module for managers which addresses the bereavement experience of staff both following the death of a patient and also the death of a colleague or family member.
One user of the programme commented: “Considering the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual aspects of loss which the Cruse training covers gave me an insight into just how deeply bereavement can affect people’s lives. I’ve learned that each of these aspects can affect people’s lives very differently. Knowing this gives a really good start in offering support.”
The online programme was written and developed by members of the Cruse training team and is published by Edinburgh based training company, LearnPro. It has been made available to all health boards in Scotland, and is also being used by a range of other organisations across Scotland.
Chief Executive of Cruse, Stewart Wilson, explained: “We were delighted to be invited to support our colleagues in the NHS with training in understanding the nature of grief and the ways that they could contribute to better outcomes for those who were grieving. Our training team have long experience in offering training in many settings, but this was the first time they had written an e-learning programme.”
Brian Gegan, Chairman of Cruse, added: “We are delighted that our health service colleagues have found this programme so useful, and are excited to pass this milestone of ten thousand staff having accessed it.”
Any enquiries about this programme, or requests for access, should be directed to: e-learning@crusescotland.org.uk
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