Frailty360 is an innovative frailty training programme that uses a unique set of resources and an immersive approach to education to deliver key learning objectives in frailty and integrated person-centred care.
There are currently 12 modules within the Frailty360 programme and these have been put together into bundles to meet the needs of most organisations who are involved in the care and support of older people living with frailty. This includes NHS providers and commissioners, local authorities, adult social care providers, Fire & Rescue services, Housing Associations, voluntary, third sector, and private providers of services accessed by older people living with frailty.
The modules are aligned with the align with the HEE/Skills for Health Frailty Core Capabilities Framework which has itself been shaped by the innovative resources developed as part of the programme. The resources have been developed to provide ‘local trainers’ or ‘champions’ with access to high quality training resources from face-to-face frailty and person-centred care training events and workshops undertaken and evaluated by over 2,000 participants.
The Frailty360 bundles are:
Become Frailty Aware
Support your staff to become Frailty Aware through interactive training resources to raise awareness and understanding of frailty, its identification, assessment and management.
Designed for everyone involved in the care and support of older people to achieve tier 2 level outcomes for Domain A (Understanding, identifying and assessing frailty) of the NHS England / Health Education England / Skills for Health Frailty Framework of Core capabilities.
A quiz, person-centred stories and the animated Frailty Fulcrum combine to produce practical learning experiences that:
- Test current knowledge and preconceptions about frailty and ageing.
- Build understanding of frailty as a long term condition, what it looks like, what it is made up of and what it means to the person living with frailty.
- Explore the multi-dimensional nature of frailty and how these may interact to build resilience or create vulnerability.
- Apply common tools to support the identification and assessment of frailty severity
- Highlight the importance of early recognition and timely management of frailty syndromes.
- Provide the “Think Frailty” framework as an overview of all aspects of frailty management.
The Frailty Aware bundle includes the following four modules of the Frailty360 programme:
- Module 1: Frailty & Ageing Quiz including localized statistics;
- Module 2: Understanding Frailty, including th Frailty Fulcrum and Nirmala’s story;
- Module 3: Identifying Frailty, including John, Barbara and Mike exercise;
- Module 4: Managing Frailty Overview, including Think Frailty framework.
FrailtySIM Learning Resources
Deployed for individual or group learning, at a time or place to suit learners’ needs, this innovative tool combines widely available software, affordable VR hardware, and easy to use learning resources; making it a flexible and scalable way to build frailty core capabilities.
Victor’s story and innovative Virtual Reality technology combine to produce memorable learning experiences that will:
- Increase awareness and understanding of frailty as a long term condition;
- Build empathy by providing the opportunity to ‘walk’ in the shoes of Victor, an older person living with frailty;
- Develop observational skills to support person-centred care;
- Highlight the importance and interaction of the different aspects of an older person’s life and how different levels of frailty affect them;
- Encourage staff to think and behave differently.
The FrailtySIM learning resources bundle includes two modules of the Frailty360 programme:
- Module 6: Become Victor & Being Jane: provides the user with the opportunity to “walk” in the shoes of an older person living with frailty and promote observational skills
- Module 7: Walking through Frailty: Users can select Fit, Mild, Moderate or Severe Frailty and compare the impact of different levels of frailty on their ability to carry out basic everyday tasks and gain insight into the type of support most relevant.
The learning resources include:
- Facilitator’s Guide
- Introductory Video
- Walkthrough Video
- Become Victor & Being Jane PowerPoint slide pack
- Reflections & Clues worksheet
- Walking through Frailty PowerPoint slide pack
- Walking through Frailty workbook
Person-Centred Approaches to Supporting Independence
Understanding what is important to an older person living with frailty is at the heart of person-centred approaches and should guide all subsequent support and actions.
Through the real-life stories of Nirmala, Baldev and Victor, the modules contained within this bundle enhance understanding of frailty and enable participants to apply their knowledge and analyse a range of situations and scenarios.
The resources cover all the capabilities of Domain B: Person-centred collaborative working: Person-centred approaches; Communication; and Families and carers as partners in care. As well as many of those within Domain C: Managing Frailty of the Frailty Framework of Core capabilities.
The bundle includes the following modules of the Frailty360 programme:
Module 5: Supporting Independence & Person-Centred Care introduces the definitions, principles, skills and a template for person-centred collaborative working.
Module 8: Victor’s story – the focuses on achieving the best possible quality of life for individuals who are being supported to remain living as independently as possible in their own home despite advancing frailty and dementia.
Module 9: Nirmala’s Multi-Disciplinary Team – explores the challenges and opportunities to motivate Nirmala during her hospital stay. Participants are encouraged to think how can we help Nirmala to achieve her goal of being discharged back home and improve her quality of life during her time in hospital.
Module 10: Caring for the carers: Baldev’s story – can be used to consider how NICE guidance on multimorbidity (NG56) provides an approach to consider Baldev’s disease and treatment burden in a holistic manner, including the psychological impact of adjusting to a carer role and its impact on Baldev’s own quality of life.
Module 11: Adapting to live well with frailty: Nirmala & Baldev together – provides participants with the opportunity to explore the potential of Assistive Technology (AT) to support Nirmala and Baldev to continue living in their own home as independently and safely as possible despite advancing frailty.
Module 12: Introduction to the Frailty Toolkit ensures trainers have sufficient awareness and understanding of the available resources and how to gain access.
To access Frailty360 training
The resources are available at https://frailty360.org