Background Prospect Hospice’s vision is Excellence and Choice in End-of-Life Care, both through the provision of care and by influencing and enhancing the care others give through education and community engagement. Education has been a key strand of Prospect Hospice’s work for more than a decade and, more recently, the hospice’s Board of Trustees have sought recognition for the excellence of the standard of education and training offered there.

Aims Specifically, the Board of Trustees felt strongly that the education team should offer accredited courses, and achieve external recognition for the standard of our education offering.

Methods A new role of Education Manager was created to supplement the Education Facilitator and Administrator in the team. This role was recruited to swiftly, and the new manager approached a range of accreditation bodies, from which the NCFE was chosen. NCFE had recognised that Prospect Hospice had limited resources as a charity whose funding was predominantly raised through the local community. The Education Manager then compiled a ‘centre folder’ of policies and procedures to demonstrate high standards of teaching and quality assurance at Prospect Hospice.

Concurrently the Education Manager looked into the Skills for Health (SfH) Quality Mark scheme, creating a portfolio of evidence to demonstrate outstanding delivery of learning and training from the education team to support a highly motivated and effective workforce. Following the submission of this, two SfH assessors reviewed paperwork, interviewed trainers and learners and observed teaching to benchmark Prospect Hospice’s standards with their own.

Results In August 2016 Prospect Hospice became an approved NCFE education and training centre for its courses. In March 2017 Prospect Hospice became the first fully independent hospice to achieve the Skills for Health Quality Mark. These results were achieved within nine months of the Board of Trustees’ request.