Without doubt one of the biggest challenges faced by hospices is providing education to their staff. While we do provide internal study days, we wanted to offer ongoing education alongside. We trialled ten-minutes sharing and learning sessions after lunchtime handovers to offer education in bite-sized chunks, to either enhance knowledge and skills or to promote awareness, with the aim of improving standards of patient care. Topics ranged from: symptom management, oncological emergencies, staff wellbeing, nutrition, catheter care, pressure ulcer management, safe use of equipment, learning disabilities and wheelchair training, to mention just a few.

Over time members of the team have taken turns delivering sessions, particularly those who undertake additional link worker roles. Staff have been encouraged to share skills and knowledge gained while attending external study days. The sessions have been running for a year and have evolved during this time. We have reviewed and adapted the sessions to meet the challenges we have encountered.

Colleagues from the multi-disciplinary team, such as our physiotherapist and social worker have undertaken education pertinent to their roles. This has resulted in better understanding of their roles within the wider clinical workforce, and led to more effective team working.

Staff feedback suggests the sessions are having positive benefits; they feel they are effective and enjoyable. Encouragingly staff have begun to take ownership of the sessions, suggesting topics for discussion. We have found that since introducing the ten-minutes sharing and learning sessions team morale has improved with staff telling us they feel included and valued. We plan to continue with the sharing and learning sessions with our intention being to build on our success. They are proving to be effective in ensuring our busy clinical workforce gains the knowledge and skills required to deliver high quality care to our patients.