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Alcohol IBA e-Learning course

Supported by RCN, RCP and RCGP

Accredited by RCN

Accredited by the Royal College of Nursing Accreditation Unit as at November 2009. Accreditation applies only to the educational content and does not apply to any product.


Supported by the RCGP and RCP

RCP logo

RCGP Substance Misuse Unit

The RCGP Substance Misuse Unit is pleased to endorse the Department of Health's Alcohol IBA e-learning module on identification and brief advice to combat alcohol-related harm. The e-module provides the background and context to the UK picture of alcohol related problems and describes the most effective means whereby individual practitioners can intervene.

The RCGP Substance misuse unit recognises the educational value of completing the module, which, when combined with the RCGP accredited workbook and face to face training, constitutes the RCGP Certificate in the management of alcohol problems in primary care.

The RCGP wishes to make it clear to learners that the Department of Health maintains the contents and delivery of the module and the RCGP is not responsible for providing user support or for the update or validation of the materials contained within it.

More information about the RCGP course opens new window

Background Information

The Alcohol Identification and Brief Advice e-learning project (Alcohol IBA) helps professionals with identifying those individuals whose drinking might be impacting on their health and delivering simple, structured advice. It has been developed in partnership with and the Department of Health's Alcohol Policy Team and e-Learning for Healthcare opens new window.

Alcohol IBA has been designed to provide the skills and understanding to deliver IBA in line with the National Occupational Standard AH10 - 'employ techniques to help individuals adopt sensible drinking behaviour'.

The course teaches users how to use World Health Organisation validated tools to identify patients' levels of health risk from alcohol and how to intervene appropriately with those who could benefit from cutting down. The curriculum is based on the robust evidence-base of 56 controlled trials over 30 years which show that five minutes of structured, motivational advice is effective in reducing health risks from alcohol in 1 in 8 recipients.

Alcohol IBA supports the Department of Health's Alcohol Improvement Programme which was set up to reduce the wide range of health harms to which alcohol misuse contributes.

Currently the e-learning covers the primary care pathway and additional pathways for hospital and pharmacy settings will be available in due course. It will also be available on the National LMS and in the Foundation and e-GP e-learning projects later in 2010.

The course offers six e-learning sessions, each taking around 20 minutes to complete. A record of achievement can be printed out once the assessment session has been undertaken.

  • Alcohol IBA - 01
    An introduction session which will help learners to understand alcohol units in common alcoholic beverages, employ the different terms used to describe drinking and its risks appropriately and identify the physical, mental, social and legal implications of excessive drinking.
  • Alcohol IBA - 02
    This session explains the scale of alcohol-related harm in the adult population and provides evidence of how Alcohol IBA can reduce the scale of this harm. The aims and key principles of Alcohol IBA are also described.
  • Alcohol IBA - 03
    This session describes the different AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) based tools available for identifying alcohol misuse, and provides guidelines on how these can best be introduced and interpreted.
  • Alcohol IBA - 04
    This session examines the relationship between the practitioner and the individual undergoing brief advice and provides some practical guidelines to use during brief advice.
  • Alcohol IBA - 05
    This session provides video examples of brief advice in practice, and how a practitioner responds to the patient. It demonstrates how the elements of FRAMES are applied and how the AUDIT questionnaire and structured advice tool are used to facilitate brief advice.
  • Alcohol IBA - 06
    An assessment to test the knowledge gained following completion of the five previous sessions.

Related pages

Also of interest

Related tags

brief advice, course, elearning, e-Learning, IBA, identification, intervention, RCN, RGCP, screening, tools, Training

We'd very much like to hear your feedback or comments on this e-learning course.
 
Department of Health

The Alcohol Learning Centre aims to share resources on local alcohol improvement interventions nationally. The appropriateness of initiatives will vary from one local area to another and inclusion of local initiatives, or actions, on this site does not represent endorsement by the Department of Health. Wherever possible we have described the evidence on which interventions are based. We work with and are funded by the Department of Health (opens a new window).