Devon chooses Consensus for learning management

A learning management system supplied by CS Group has been chosen by five NHS trusts in the South Devon NHS Community to support their learning and development programmes.

CS Group will supply the five trusts with its Consensus Learning Management System (LMS), which will initially be used to support the local training and administration requirements of the NHS Connecting for Health IT modernisation programme.

The five trusts comprising the South Devon Health Community are: South Devon Healthcare Trust; Torbay Care Trust; Teignbridge Primary Care Trust; South Hams & West Devon Primary Care Trust; and Devon Partnership Trust

The education and development directorate, based at Torbay Hospital, delivers shared services to South Devon Healthcare NHS Trust, Torbay Care Trust and Teignbridge Primary Care Trust and had already identified a need for an LMS, to manage the range of training courses offered each year to these three organisations.

According to CS Group the Consensus package was chosen because it would best enable the Trust to meet the criteria set down as part of the agreement with local Connecting for Health provider, the Fujitsu Alliance.

South Devon Health Informatics Service will use the application to manage and deliver e-learning as well as helping to meet the administrative and reporting requirements of Connecting for Health.

Malcolm Senior, director of the South Devon Health Informatics Service, said: “We wanted an LMS that could be fully integrated with the new ESR (Electronic Staff Record) so that changes to staff records will update in the LMS without the need for additional data entry – thereby reducing the potential for data entry errors, and reducing the burden on our administrative teams."

Senior added: "As well as linking to NHS Mail, Consensus LMS will also be used as the vehicle to launch and store our existing, proprietary e-learning."

Susan Martin, education lead at South Devon Healthcare Trust, said: "As well as meeting the short term requirements we have to manage the complex scheduling of training our 5000 staff in the new National Programme for IT applications, Consensus LMS will help us meet our longer term goals of staff development”.

Adam Hart, business development manager, at CS Group said: the Consensus LMS provides "local NHS training managers the tools they need to develop skills, continue professional development, and improve staff retention…"

CS Group says Consensus LMS is designed to allow organisations to: streamline training administration processes; keep statutory training up to date and reduce the risk of litigation; make more informed decisions with detailed management reports; and access employee records for intelligent internal recruitment. 

The company has experience of working with over 35 other NHS organisations, including Tameside & Glossop Primary Care Trust, NHS Education for Scotland and Royal Berkshire Ambulance Trust, helping them to manage training administration and learning management programmes.