Health Education and Training: HEAT

HEAT is an accelerated and scalable Healthcare Education and Training programme for frontline healthcare workers, providing them with vital healthcare skills and the potential to save millions of lives.

HEAT is radically different to existing healthcare worker training programmes.  Its content, written by African health experts in collaboration with the OU, is split into two parts – practical training and theoretical training.  The practical training is delivered by HEAT implementation partners close to where the healthcare workers live, enabling them to stay living and working in their communities while learning, and this is possible because - like the TESSA programme - the HEAT theoretical materials are available in printed format as well as online, making them accessible to all, no matter how rural their location.

The programme launched in Ethiopia in 2011, with £4m UNICEF funding and in close partnership with the Ethiopian Government, the World Health Organisation and AMREF.  HEAT’s content addresses priority health areas including postnatal care, newborn and childhood illnesses and communicable diseases, and discussions are now underway to replicate the model and materials across sub-Saharan Africa, helping the region reach and train the 1 million additional health workers needed to reach its Millennium Development Goals.