Boots Care Learning, the online learning platform for carers and nurses in care homes served by Boots has now for the first time been made available free for all care homes across the UK

• The online resource includes over 70 modules to support training and upskilling staff in patient care and medication management
• Care home leaders call it “invaluable for care homes and their staff’s confidence in supporting the most vulnerable in our country”
• Boots is also sending out thousands of products to workers in the care homes it serves as a thank you for their tireless work

Care homes looking after hundreds of thousands of vulnerable residents across the UK have now been offered free access to Boots Care Learning to support new and existing staff.

There are more than 20,000 care homes in the UK looking after over 400,000 residents, and they are facing immense pressure on staffing, whilst still protecting this vulnerable group of people.

Boots has been a long-term supporter social care, delivering medicines and providing much needed support to care homes on a daily basis for over 30 years.

The online Boots Care Learning resource, deemed one of the best care training programmes, is made up of over 70 modules. To support through the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be available free of charge for all residential and nursing home staff across the UK. Resources include up to date COVID-19 content, medication management training, as well as care support for dementia and diabetes.

The news comes days after the UK Government announced a national social care recruitment campaign to help urgently fill the 122,000 vacancies currently in the sectorⁱⁱ to ease staffing pressures due to the pandemic.  Over a third of all care home providers have said that they “urgently need more staff”.[i]

Vic Rayner, the Director of the National Care Forum (NCF), which is the leading voice for not for profit care providers, said: “Care homes are at the frontline of the COVID-19 crisis and we have the most incredible workforce across social care, supporting our most vulnerable citizens in these very challenging times. The care sector is also working hard to attract new workers and volunteers to join the frontline of care. This initiative from Boots will provide invaluable support for care homes and their staff’s confidence and expertise in these specialist healthcare topics as they look after their residents and patients, and will help to upskill new recruits as they join our care workforce.”

As a token of thanks for the tireless work of staff in care homes, Boots is also sending thousands of products to care home workers up and down the country.

Alex Roberts, Head of Care Services and Speciality Items for Boots UK added: “Many care home residents have very serious and complex health conditions, which our pharmacists and pharmacy teams have valuable expertise in. So during these unprecedented times, we feel that it’s absolutely right to make this knowledge available to all care homes across the UK in addition to the ones we partner with. This will help the training of hundreds of new starters who are joining the care homes sector every day. Our Care Services team have been caring for the most vulnerable patients in our communities for over 30 years and throughout COVID-19, we continue to do just that – side by side with our colleagues in the social care sector, as we are with the NHS.”

Boots and the NCF hope that this initiative, alongside the return of nurses, employment of new recruits and volunteers, will help to ease the pressure on residential care, and support new joins to train up quickly on essential healthcare conditions and medicines management.

Vacancies are available via www.everydayisdifferent.com. Care home managers can request access to Boots Care Learning by emailing: bootscarelearninghelp@boots.co.uk

• The Boots Care Learning platform will be available to all Care Homes until 31 January 2021 to support existing and new staff joining the sector
• ⁱhttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879639/covid-19-adult-social-care-action-plan.pdf
• ^i[i]https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/national-information/The-state-of-the-adult-social-care-sector-and-workforce-in-England.aspx

About Boots UK

Boots UK (boots.com), the UK’s largest pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer, is part of the Retail Pharmacy International Division of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA), the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise.

With 2,465* stores in the UK, its purpose is to champion everyone’s right to feel good. Boots UK is committed to providing exceptional customer and patient care, be the first choice for pharmacy and healthcare and offer innovative 'only at Boots' exclusive products such as No7, a leading UK skincare brand, Soap and Glory and Liz Earle.

Created 170 years ago, the Boots brand is still at the heart of the communities it serves.

*As of 31 August 2019, excluding equity method investments.