Mandatory Training for Practice Staff
There are no statutory regulations that specify how often primary care staff should be trained. Fundamentally, it is important that if anything untoward happened in your practice, the Partners could stand in front of a coroner or judge and justify that the training they had provided for their staff was sufficient to ensure they were competent, and confident to undertake the task given to them.
It would be wise to check guidance from the following to see if they are making specific training recommendations:
- BMA
- Training resource for GP practice staff (bma.org.uk) This guidance highlights when training should be carried out, fees, avoiding training duplication and recognising training from other platforms, as well as professional responsibility and avoiding excessive mandatory training.
- GMC
- CQC
- GP mythbuster 70: Mandatory training considerations in general practice – Care Quality Commission (cqc.org.uk)
- Health and Safety Executive
- Resuscitation Council
- Enhanced Services Specifications
- Learning Disabilities and Autism Training
- All GP practices in England must ensure their staff receive training in learning disability and autism, including how to interact appropriately with people with a learning disability and autistic people. This requirement was introduced by the Health and Care Act 2022. The government’s preferred training programme is the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism. However, the Act does not specify a training package or course for staff.See also Training staff to support autistic people and people with a learning disability – Care Quality Commission. NHS Trusts and ICBs have agreed that this is the list of statutory and mandatory training for their staff. It is not statutory and mandatory for GPs practices, but it might be a helpful guide
- Prevent Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
- The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 has introduced a legal duty for employers to proactively take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment AND discipline or hold to account those who are found guilty. Please see here for more information. We have a lunch and learn resource for your staff if you would like to use this for your practice.
‘Mandatory’ means that specified training is compulsory at the discretion of the employer, however there are many other examples of good practice in training that you may wish to follow to keep all staff up to date. Mandatory training differs for Staff/Managers and Practice Nurses but is basically as follows and Wessex LMCs recommends:
- Induction: once (within first month of employment)
- Fire Safety: annually
- Moving & Handling. NHSE (April 2025) suggest every 2-3 years
- Infection Control: annually
- CPR/Basic Life Support: annually
- Health and Safety
- ‘NHSE (April 2025) suggest every 3 years
- Safeguarding (adults and children):
- see more detail on our Safeguarding page here
- Information Governance
- Annually for staff who have access to personal information. NHS Digital – The Data Security and Protection Toolkit is an online self-assessment tool that allows organisations to measure their performance against the National Data Guardian’s 10 data security standards.
- You may wish to use our Lunch and Learn for this for the whole practice.
- Customer Service Skills
- Conflict Resolution: 3 yearly refresher. You may wish to use our Lunch and Learn training resources for this. We have one on Customer Service Skills and one on Understanding Conflict
- Equality, Diversity and Human Rights: every three years. This needs to include Sexual Safety. We have written lunch and learn resources to help you with this: Equality & Human Rights in General Practice – Wessex LMCs and Sexual Safety in General Practice – Wessex LMCs
- Mental Capacity Act: once with refresher if required.
- We also have written a Lunch and Learn training resource to support this.
- Learning Disability and Autism Training:
- health and social care providers will need to complete training on learning disability and autism, Please see here
For team leaders or managers of staff or appointed leads it is also recommended that the following are covered at least once:
- Managing Performance
- Recruitment and Selection
- Appraisal training
- Managing sickness and absence
- Risk assessment
For any information on training courses to cover any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact Louise Greenwood on louise.greenwood@wessexlmcs.org.uk
Free e-learning can be accessed at http://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Account/logon