NHS England elearning for healthcare has worked in partnership with University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to develop a new e-learning programme on complex clinical reasoning.  

To safely and effectively assess, treat and manage people in our complex health system, it is essential for professionals to use complex clinical reasoning and decision-making skills. 

The new Complex Clinical Reasoning e-learning programme aims to support clinicians working along the continuum of enhanced to advanced practice, who want to learn about the complexities of clinical reasoning across the NHS to develop key knowledge around the clinical reasoning process, including how to implement this in clinical practice.  

This programme will be of value to many practitioners wanting to expand their field of clinical reasoning during the progression of their careers along the continuum of enhanced to advanced level practice. It has been designed to run in parallel with supervision in practice for developing clinical reasoning skills in both the e-learning and clinically based components of the programme’s learning advanced practice supervision and contains a detailed supervisor guidance pack to enable further critical thinking and reflection.  

The programme consists of nine e-learning sessions in total, which can be accessed in any order or timeframe.  

Each session sets out clear aims to help learners grow confidence in the clinical reasoning process. This includes, identifying examples of clinical reasoning strategies, describing new and outdated clinical reasoning frameworks and explaining the benefits associated with a multi-professional approach.  

Upon completion of the programme, both learners and supervisors can print evidence of achievement to include within their portfolios. 

For more information and to access the programme, please visit the Complex Clinical Reasoning programme page.