The Hospice of St Francis

The Hospice of St Francis use accessplanit to automate and scale their education and training programme

“It has relieved us of so much valuable time to be doing other productive things. We’re more focused on marketing now, growing our subscribers and our reach. It has given us time to move the business forward.”

Linda Harris | The Hospice of St Francis

We spoke to Linda Harris, Education and Training Business Manager at The Hospice of St Francis, to learn more about how they use accessplanit to manage their education and training programme.

About The Hospice of St Francis

The Hospice of St Francis is a centre of excellence in clinical education based in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. They are committed to empowering other health and social care professionals through expertise, passion, and education.

Each year, they plan a clinical educational program according to the industry’s current needs; whether that’s in hospitals, doctor’s surgeries, or care homes. They offer a range of workshops, courses, placements and study days for multidisciplinary professionals, student practitioners and volunteers.

The challenge

“Prior to accessplanit, all our processes were manual. We used spreadsheets and all kinds of other tools to keep things moving. The working hours in the day became longer and longer; we realised we were growing, and we needed something to work with us.”

Around 18 months ago, The Hospice of St Francis realised the volume of incoming course enquiries and bookings was just too big to manage. They had manual, time-consuming processes, including trays full of course information in plastic folders. They were managing courses using word documents, sending emails one by one, and taking payments over the phone, with delegates unable to book and pay online.

They explored a few platforms before deciding that accessplanit was the best fit for their needs. One option was a Learning Management System (LMS), which lacked the functionality to be able to support their training business fully. They also explored another Training Management Software (TMS) similar to accessplanit, but noted that accessplanit was much more modern, slick and simple to navigate.

“We had multiple demos with accessplanit prior to implementation; the team were so patient with us!”

The accessplanit solution 

“It’s absolutely fantastic; it has transformed the way that we work. It’s a brilliant platform and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it to anybody.””

Linda Harris | The Hospice of St Francis

Linda notes that the automation and workflows within the accessplanit platform are the most valuable functionalities for her training business.

“It’s all automated; it does the simple things that used to take up so much of our time. Things like booking confirmations, both to external delegates and to our own staff. People can book themselves on courses through our website and pay straight away. This then triggers a booking confirmation, course instructions, reminders about upcoming course dates, as well as follow-up communication after that.”

“From our internal view, we can see who has booked on our courses, how many and when, insights into their demographics including their profession, or where they’re from. We can set and cap numbers of maximum delegates per course. The trainers then get a list of everyone that has booked for full visibility.”

The benefits

Time

When asked what the main benefit The Hospice of St Francis has seen since using accessplanit, Linda notes the time her team has saved:

“The time! We’ve expanded and carried on being busy, and yet accessplanit is doing a whole raft of manual processes that we don’t have to do anymore. So, more time is definitely the main benefit. It has relieved us of so much valuable time to be doing other productive things. We’re more focused on marketing now, growing our subscribers, it’s given us time to move the business forward.”

Growth/scale

One of their main goals as a training company is to grow their reach to different clinical professions. The accessplanit platform has allowed them to do so:

“One of our main goals is to grow our reach to different clinical professions. Something that is really impressive since we’ve had accessplanit, is that we’ve had people from New Zealand, Australia, Iraq, Gibraltar, all over the world, booking on our courses which we didn’t have before."

Configurable

“We find the system is so agile, nothing is set in stone. We can chop and change our minds about things such as categories, and things we want to report on.”

Support

“I just can’t speak highly enough of the support team. They are phenomenal. Nothing is too much trouble. I consider them as being my colleagues. They’re so, so friendly, and always completely understanding of what the question is.”

“The implementation process was very in-depth. We didn’t want it to end as we wanted to make sure we hadn’t missed any information. That was never the case, the support team were there, we knew we could pick up the phone or drop an email. We feel we’re partnered with someone who really looks after us.”

“The knowledge base with the video guides is also brilliant. We feel really looked after and supported with accessplanit.”

Next steps

So, what is next for Linda and her team at The Hospice of St Francis?

“I am going to be completing the Reporting Masterclass at some point, and there are a few other functionalities that we will be optimising in the future – for example the awards, that’s something that we really want to get going. I feel confident I have a good understanding of this, however I can always drop a ticket to the support team and they’ll be on it straight away.”

“The platform is so agile and so flexible, and to be that agile, it has to be a big platform. We’ve now had the platform for around a year; there’s so much more that we could be doing in terms of optimisation, which is an exciting ongoing development for us. It is a stunning system and we’re really happy with it.”

See for yourself just how our training management system can help your business. Book a demo today.