Following a long campaign led by Oliver McGowan’s mother Paula McGowan OBE, HEE and partners at DHSC, NHS England and Skills for Care launched The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism elearning.
Oliver McGowan was a bright, kind and happy young man with a mild learning disability and autism. Oliver tragically died on 11 November 2016 in an NHS hospital and his death shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better training in understanding, communicating with and treating people with a learning disability and autistic people.
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training aims to provide the health and care workforce with the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. This requirement is set out in the Health and Care Act 2022.
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training has been co-produced, trialled with over 8300 health and care staff and independently evaluated by NDTi. It has been designed in two tiers so all staff working across all CQC registered services receive the right level of mandatory training. The elearning is the first part of The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training and everyone in health and care needs to do this no matter where they work and what tier of training they need to complete.
Later staff will need to complete their training by attending either a one hour online interactive session (for Tier 1) or a one day face to face training (for Tier 2) that will be available from early 2023.
HEE is currently working with partners to ensure each Integrated Care Board (ICB) is being supported to develop training capacity.
Research has shown that on average, people with a learning disability and autistic people die earlier than the general public, and do not receive the same quality of care as people without a learning disability or who are not autistic. We want and need to change this.
We need to do everything in our power to prevent a story like Oliver’s from having to be told again and launching the training is a vital step to help us all achieve this.
For further information, please visit The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism webpage
New film explaining The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism
NHS England, with partners, has shared a powerful new animation about The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism.
The animation has been co-designed and co-produced with autistic people and people with a learning disability. It is aimed at helping staff and employers across health and social care to understand Oliver’s Training and why it is so vitally important.
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism aims to provide the health and social care workforce with the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. This requirement is set out in the Health and Care Act 2022.
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training is the government’s preferred and recommended training for health and social care staff. It was named after Oliver McGowan, whose death shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better training. 400,000 people have already completed part one of the training, the elearning, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive: “The most powerful elearning I’ve done in my 20-year career.” To find out more, visit The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training webpage.
