City & Guilds – Assured Accreditation
A major contribution to support one of the highest-profile healthcare sector challenges, that of the shortage of nurses, has been Avery’s leading Advanced Senior Carer (ASC) role. This new position and qualification upskills experienced and senior carers to undertake some of the lower level nurse responsibilities and duties, under appropriate supervision, enabling the nurses to focus on residents with higher or more complex care needs.
It has delivered a model example to the rest of the healthcare sector in adjusting the skills mix while ensuring positive outcomes and maintaining resident safety. It is a part of Avery’s continuous comprehensive staff training programme that drives reliable continuity in its high standards of service delivery.
Avery’s intensive six-month blended-learning ASC course was so comprehensive and robust that it gained accreditation from the world-renowned City & Guilds (C&G) in 2017 and has retained that status in subsequent annual reinspections. It is delivered through a blend of classroom, on-line and on-the-job learning. Standards though always need to improve, and recently C&G in conjunction with the Institute for Leadership & Management (ILM) raised the bar in training programme accreditation to a new level of ‘Assured’. Not one to rest on its laurels, Avery immediately responded with an improved ASC course that gained the Assured accreditation at its very first inspection.
The Assured benchmark from C&G and ILM provides independent external recognition for in-house bespoke training programmes, a mark of learning quality and credibility. It assesses against five core standards: planning and management, design and delivery, participant support, quality assurance, and evaluation and continuous development. The inspection report stated, “They [Avery] are fully committed to the programme, and there is much evidence that it is a benefit to all stakeholders, including residents and staff….Avery has seen a marked improvement in staff retention and performance since implementing the ASC Programme.”
Well done to all in the Training and Development team at Avery that helped to deliver this outstanding result!
Article by Shelley Parker-Wain, Learning & Development Director.
