Health Education England celebrates progress on Topol recommendations four years on

A review into the progress made on recommendations made in the 2019 Topol Review has been released by Health Education England.

The review demonstrates the progress the health and care sector has made in implementing the recommendations that had been designed to tackle the big healthcare challenges in the future.

Digital technologies that the ability to enhance the skills of the health and care workforce, improve productivity and create more time for patient care.

Over the past four years we have seen a wide range of initiatives set up to help providing the learning tools needed for staff to be able to meet the recommendations in the Topol Review.

These include:

• The establishment of education programmes in Genomics, Digital Readiness and Digital, AI and Robotics Technologies (DART-Ed) to develop workforce capability at all levels
• Development of HEE’s Knowledge and Library Services offer, making knowledge more accessible to healthcare professionals ensuring evidence-based decision making, as well as helping to improve digital and health literacy of patients and citizens
• Growth in use of the elearning for healthcare hub, now with over two million users accessing 450+ elearning programmes, and launch of the Learning Hub, enabling the health and care workforce to contribute and share a wide variety of learning resources for colleagues to use.
• Use of the NHS Digital Academy to implement a wide range of programmes for NHS staff from the boardroom to developing specialist skills to use on the frontline.
• The promotion of XR technology in education, which have given learners a new perspective on how they are trained and develop the skills needed to provide the best care for patients
• More flexible approaches to learning through our blended learning education programmes and degrees

Patrick Mitchell, Director of Innovation, Digital and Transformation at Health Education England, said: “We have made great strides over the past four years to develop and implement the recommendations in the Topol Review.

“The work that has gone in across the digital healthcare space has seen us make fantastic interventions into the genomics, knowledge and e-learning fields and we will continue to work to implement the recommendations in the Topol Review.”

Read the full report here.