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Caerphilly-based healthcare company, Direct Healthcare Group (DHG), has revealed it has helped train more than 12,000 healthcare professionals since the launch of its Ethos digital learning platform.

The online training service was developed by the group to complement existing nurse training and launched in January 2020 to support district nurses and community care workers across the UK who struggled to find easy access to courses.

To date, the free service has helped train over 12,436 clinical professionals.

Encountering huge demand for online training needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, DHG revealed a surge of participants seeking guidance in bed management and moving and enabling courses, as capacity demands changed patient requirements and home care became the precedent.

Graham Ewart, CEO at DHG, said: “The Ethos platform has opened up learning for clinicians throughout the pandemic, and we fully expect online courses like ours to continue as professionals seek hybrid, virtual healthcare training which fits flexibly around their work schedules and lifestyles.”

“Over the past 18 months, our courses have proved essential to nurses. At the height of the pandemic, patients were swiftly moved out of acute care environments and into homes to ease capacity pressures, but with this came differing healthcare needs, as patients still required high levels of care, including frequent repositioning and pressure ulcer prevention.”

“These activities are a standard part of daily care in hospital environments, but significantly challenging in the home, particularly where face-to-face contact is reduced. Our training helped clinicians feel confident and prepared in the face of difficult and challenging circumstances.”

“Not only does Ethos ensure clinicians maintain best practice and understanding of varying needs and new medical device technology, but it is a great source of information sharing and many see it as a highly important source of networking in this regard.”

Following its success in the UK, DHG have now extended the service to international markets, including the Netherlands and the Nordic region.