Alison Innes-Farquhar has worked for HC-One since its inception in 2011 and was tasked with transforming the business culture across HC-One homes. HC-One took the innovative step to change the way staff gained confidence and skills to deliver the kindest care to its 10,000 residents through the development of a bespoke learning and development programme called touch.

Working with award-winning partners Acteon Communication and Learning, touch was launched in September 2012, providing everyone who works for HC-One with a bespoke personal learning programme tailored to their role, with the vision and values of the company embedded into each programme.

"I am delighted to have been named the Chief Learning Officer of the Year," Alison said. "A key objective has always been to use our bespoke touch learning-and-development programme to transform the way we communicate, reflect, and learn, and I am proud to have led a very talented team to be part of that transformation."

"For me, the real reward is to take the care sector to the forefront of learning and development and support the delivery of the kindest care to residents," she added.

Alison’s team have developed innovative courses covering specialist subjects including caring for those living with dementia, which is endorsed by Alzheimer’s Society, medicines management, safeguarding, and many other required learning courses. The programmes are delivered through mixed media, animations, workshops, games, video, and eLearning.  

In addition to her pivotal role in the creation of this industry-leading programme, Alison has also had an important part in the implementation of touch. There is now a remarkable 100% adoption rate of the programme, with over 325,000 completed programmes delivering 228,000 hours of learning across HC-One since September 2012.  

"We’re so pleased Alison has been recognised for her work," said Owen Rose, a managing partner at Acteon. "She and her team have been completely dedicated to making learning and development the driving force behind real improvement in resident care and staff engagement at HC-One. The outcomes tell the story. The reward is very well deserved." 

Over the last four months, Acteon and HC-One’s touch programme have been honoured as winners of a Peer Award for Excellence in the use of Technology for People and Performance, two Gold eLearning Awards and two Gold Training Journal Awards.