The Bedside Learning Co-ordinator Role: capturing and acting on insights from the front-line

The role was originally created at NHS Nightingale Hospital London during the first wave of the pandemic.

We are supporting the introduction of the role across the NHS, including the development of an app to support the role and a community of practice.

Background

The BLC role was created at the NHS Nightingale Hospital London during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to gather valuable insights from the frontline without increasing burden on staff.

The BLC would record staff insights on what was and was not working, and rapidly feed these insights back to the leadership teams to review, triangulate with other data and implement required actions as appropriate.

In addition, the role undertook focused audits to confirm that implemented changes were successful, satisfactory to staff, and permanent.

A tracker tool was used to triage insights into three areas:

• Fix (requiring immediate action)
• Improve (suggestions for better ways of doing things that are already done)
• Change (substantial changes to care that is delivered or a new or different way of doing something that has not been done to date)

Insights and recommendations were then taken to the appropriate teams for action. The tracker tool was used to monitor progress.

Watch our webinar which explains more about the BLC role:

BLC app

We have been working with Telesoftas to develop a web-based app to streamline the data flows.

This will allow BLCs to enter insights directly into a database, see if those insights have already been captured and actioned by searching a tracker/back end dataset, and make it possible for leadership teams to implement changes and track progress.

Community of practice

We are delighted to see several hospitals across the NHS adopting the BLC role. Over the coming months we are launching a community of practice to provide an opportunity to share experiences and learn from others.  

Further information

If you would like to find out more about the BLC role, the web-based BLC app, or join the BLC community of practice, please contact emma.mordaunt@uclpartners.com.

Resources

• Systematically capturing and acting on sights from front-line staff: the Bedside Learning Co-ordinator (BMJ)
• Nightingale Bedside Learning Co-ordinator handbook
• Nightingale Hospital London Learning System approach (Powerpoint)
• Example Bedside Learning Co-ordinator job description (Chase Farm).