Oliver McGowan ‘Mandatory’ Training

After a very long delay following a consultation in Autumn 2023, the Government has now released a draft Code of Practice for the Oliver McGowan ‘Mandatory’ Training on Learning Disability and Autism.

If no substantive objections are raised to this, it will become a legal requirement in September 2025.

CQC will likely follow the Code of Practice and there will be (as now) two levels of training.

In the past two years many ICBs have supported training through Practice Training Days and using their Training Hubs to provide the training, for which we are most grateful.

In the original consultation, GPC England (having heard from many GPs and LMCs) raised concerns about the more detailed F2F training session, in terms of the impact on practices of many clinicians being absent to undergo the training and suggesting instead a shortened version and cascading approach to information.

At present CQC does expect practices to be aware of both tiers of training and will expect practices to assess staff in terms of their appropriateness of receiving this. As Tier 1 training is now readily available (via eLFH), this should be incorporated into your staff training programme. For Tier 2, CQC are aware of the challenges with the F2F training and so it is reasonable for practices to be aware of the need for a second F2F training session, and to demonstrate that they have made an effort to:

• Establish the availability of suitable training that meets the new requirements.
  
• Engage with providers or local systems to understand what training is being offered.
  
• Put a plan in place for when and how the training will be delivered to relevant staff.
  
  Please see: Training staff to support autistic people and people with a learning disability – Care Quality Commission for more details