St Roccos Hospice Case Study

About St Roccio's Hospice

St Rocco’s Hospice provides high-quality care and promotes physical, social, psychological and spiritual wellbeing for patients with life-limiting illness. In doing so, it places patients, carers and families at the heart of everything it does.

The hospice supports the Borough of Warrington, a community of over 200,000 people, providing highly specialised care – along with a wide range of services – to support those who have been diagnosed with illnesses which are terminal, or life-limiting.

St Rocco’s Hospice is regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Charity Commission.

The Challenge

St Rocco’s Hospice, a registered charity, provides all care free of charge to patients and carers. Only about a third of its funding comes from the NHS, with the remainder raised through community donations, fundraising, shops, and its lottery. The hospice offers services not readily available elsewhere, working closely with local healthcare professionals.

High-quality care depends on a skilled workforce, but training delivery must balance service needs, varied staff roles, and cost control. Clinical and non-clinical staff have different mandatory training requirements, with some shared core elements, including those required by the CQC.

Previously, training was delivered via workbooks or classroom sessions—methods found to be time-consuming, difficult to administer, and ineffective in measuring knowledge retention. Marking, feedback, and maintaining Excel-based training records created a heavy administrative burden. For a 24/7 service, coordinating in-person sessions added further challenges.

/n/n### The Solution

St Rocco’s Hospice turned to online learning with a clear vision: streamline training, improve compliance, and empower both staff and managers. The goal was to replace paper-based processes and inefficient reporting with a single, centralised training record and robust HR performance management tools.

Key objectives included:

• Replacing manual admin and paper-based training with a comprehensive e-learning system
• Providing accurate reporting to improve training management and CQC compliance
• Empowering managers and staff with easier access to up-to-date learning
• Increasing participation in training across the organisation

Project Support Officer, Eileen Barker, shared that St Rocco’s evaluated four online learning providers before selecting Virtual College. The decision was based on the user-friendly platform, wide course selection, and strong value for money.

Through Virtual College’s LMS, the hospice gained access to over 25 online courses, covering essential topics like Dignity in Care and Infection, Prevention and Control. Custom modules with St Rocco’s policies embedded further ensured relevance to local procedures.

Today, over 150 staff—clinical and non-clinical—are actively using the system, with training paths tailored to their roles and responsibilities.

The Results

St Rocco’s Hospice has seen significant improvements in training delivery and compliance since implementing the Virtual College learning management system (LMS).

Staff now benefit from 24/7 access to training, which is essential for a service operating around the clock. The move from workbooks to e-learning has resulted in more effective knowledge delivery and better retention. Training content is more detailed, accessible, and engaging.

The LMS has enabled St Rocco’s to streamline the management of mandatory training, reducing the administrative burden and improving the accuracy and consistency of training records. Manual systems have largely been replaced, and tools like the Event Manager module are being explored to further expand functionality.

The system makes it easy to track compliance, identify staff due for refresher training, and report on performance for inspections such as those carried out by the CQC. Delivering more training online has also reduced the need for staff to be taken away from their roles, contributing to cost and time savings.

Compliance rates have significantly improved. The hospice now reports very high learner participation, with an overall pass rate of 98% across both clinical and non-clinical staff. All training data is stored centrally, allowing for efficient access and reporting. Where appropriate, face-to-face sessions are still used for practical topics like basic life support, maintaining a blended learning approach.