The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown a spotlight on the issues currently facing the UK health and social care sector.

On one hand, the UK’s ageing population is placing ever-increasing demands on the care system. For example, by 2040, there are expected to be 1.6 million people living with dementia in the UK, which is around double the current figure. But with over 112,000 vacancies in the sector and increasing pressure from the dual factors of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, recruiting sufficient workers to fill the growing number of health and social care sector jobs is an ongoing problem.

In the highly competitive health and social care sector, a skilled and motivated workforce is key to maintaining the delicate balance between budgetary constraints and high levels of care.

Of course, workers in health and social care are required to undergo Continuous Professional Development. But even beyond that, there are clear advantages to investing in staff training, which include better patient care and improved staff motivation, morale and retention rates. And the opposite is also true: failure to invest in your personnel can lead to higher costs, poor staff morale and lower standards of patient care.

And yet there are still some institutions who aren’t investing in staff training beyond the required minimum. Why is this? Perhaps they are still equating staff development with costly training courses, loss of staff hours and having to cover the cost of travel and accommodation, but times have changed.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many people to move their business communications onto online platforms. Zoom calls and Microsoft Teams meetings are now the new normal. This represents a real opportunity for health and social care providers, who can use online care skills training to boost the efficiency and qualify of their staff training programme.

Each employee can access the online care training programme from their usual location. So with no need to pay for travel and accommodation costs, and no on-site instructors to pay for, moving your care training online can represent a significant cost saving.

This also reduces the amount of time that is required for travel, which is of particular benefit to those care providers in rural locations. Instead of having to take days out of work to travel to a training centre, they can simply follow the course from their usual location and at their own pace.

Changes to treatments and procedures mean that the care sector is constantly evolving, and in the past this meant constant disruption for your staff. But with online training, it doesn’t matter if you’re training a single new recruit or your entire staff, you can easily plan your health and social care training programme with minimal disruption to your day-to-day business. And of course that means less disruption and the best possible care for your patients.

There are also benefits for those receiving the training. Busy care workers can fit training around their schedule, at a time that suits them, without the need to take additional time away from their family or work.  And the interactive nature of online training means that they can study at their own pace, pausing when necessary and repeating sections that they need to go over again.

Of course, online care skills training isn’t going to answer all of the problems facing health and social care in the UK. But by making training more cost-effective, more efficient and more convenient, it can at least help to ease one of the pressures on the sector.