Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training Programme 

1. Background

1.1. The Health and Care Act 2022 introduced a requirement that regulated service providers must ensure their staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role. NHS Trusts, social care providers and local authorities have developed their own internal training and have incorporated it into their mandatory training policies and programmes.

1.2. The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training (OMMT) on Learning Disability and Autism programme was developed in response to the tragic death of Oliver McGowan and is the standardised training that was developed for this purpose. This is the government’s preferred and recommended training for health and social care staff. The OMMT training programme is NOT mandatory.

1.3. A new national Code of Practice which will identify the standards that all learning disability and autism training for all NHS, social care and council providers to meet is currently being developed. It is likely that this will be launched in early 2024 and all learning disability and autism training will be required to meet the standards contained in the code of practice and will be used in future CQC inspections.

1.4. The OMMT training requires colleagues to complete a pre-e-learning package of approximately 90 minutes, tier 1 training for most staff consists of a 1 hour virtual training course and tier 2 training for all key front line staff requires a full days face to face training. All tiers have a 3 year refresher period.

1.5. A key requirement of the OMMT is that tier 1 and tier 2 training is delivered by a qualified lead trainer and co-delivered by an expert with lived experience with learning disabilities and a second expert with lived experience with autism, a trio-training approach.

1.6. The OMMT Tier 1 training consists of a pre-e-learning course which is currently available free of charge for all health and care staff to access via elfh website: The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism – elearning for healthcare (e-lfh.org.uk) To gain the full Tier 1 compliance colleagues must complete both the e-learning package and the face to face training delivery. Completion of e-learning alone does not constitute full compliance with Tier 1 training

2. Risks and Financial Implications

2.1. LSC ICB is working very closely with all of the NW ICBs who are all experiencing identical challenges in the operationalisation of the OMMT and are also reflected nationally.

2.2. Currently there is insufficient external training capacity in the NW region to bring in organisations who have trained trainers and experts with lived experience to meet NW training requirements.

2.3. Once the National code of conduct has been finalised, all organisations internal training for learning disability and autism must meet the required standards. CQC are strongly advocating OMMT as their preferred choice, but this will still not be mandatory. Organisations can adopt their existing learning disability and autism training provision to meet the new national code of practice.

2.4. The most significant risk to all Trusts, social care providers and ICBs is the ongoing financial implications to buy in external trainers and experts by lived experience to deliver the OMMT programme. Based upon some regional high level modelling, this will add an additional financial cost of £3m to the LSC ICB foot print, approximately £500k per Trust. If social care homes and council run care homes were to rollout this training it will add a further £7m, totalling an additional financial burden to LSC of approximately £10m. This figure does not include staff backfill costs to attend the OMMT training. All NHS Trusts and social care providers will be responsible for paying for the delivery costs of the OMMT.

2.5. Whilst all organisations support the importance of this training, in the current challenging financial climate this potential additional cost is unacceptable and due to the prescriptive nature of the OMMT training delivery model is not sustainable. All ICBs have formally engaged with the NHSE regional teams who have escalated this to a national level.

3. Current position

3.1. LSC ICB has been given a pump prime investment through NHSE to develop the capacity of experts with lived experience and trainers who can deliver the Oliver McGowan Training. This is short term funding and is not designed to pay for the delivery of training within organisations, it is specifically to build capacity.

3.2. We have paused any further development work and training delivery for the pilot sites until we have an agreed system wide approach given the financial implications and training delivery capacity risks. All LSC NHS HR Directors have stated that they will not be rolling out the OMMT due to the significant financial delivery costs and back fill costs of staff to attend this training.

3.3. All NW ICBs are working together to engage with regional and national teams on the financial impacts on systems and raising concerns of the restrictive nature of the training delivery.

3.4. A NW regional approach to build the capacity of experts with lived experience is currently being developed as it is highly likely that the new National Code of Practice will stipulate the use of experts with lived experience to deliver learning disability and autism training.

3.5. Once the NW regional approach has been confirmed, further communications and engagement with all NHS, social care and local authorities will commence.

Lee Radford

Acting Chief People Officer and Director for Education and OD – LSC ICB