In the City of Westminster, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (collectively referred to as the tri-borough), around 150 people died due to suicide and undetermined injuries in 2011-13. Historically, these rates have been higher than in most London boroughs.

To help address this serious issue, the Suicide Prevention Working Group recommended the commissioning of a training programme in both suicide awareness and intervention for front-line staff across primary-care, local-authority, and voluntary-sector organisations in the tri-borough.

The Central London Clinical Commissioning Group (CLCCG) sought quotations from training providers for a three-year programme of face-to-face training to almost 700 members of staff, including GPs and their front-line staff and voluntary-sector workers.

This was to be complemented by an eLearning solution aimed at conveying key messages to a potentially very wide range of staff in all partner organisations, ensuring participants received a basic level of knowledge based on recognised evidence-based best practice.

The competitive tendering process was assessed on both price and non-price (quality/technical capability) award criteria.

Virtual College, one of the UK's leading providers of total solutions in the eLearning arena, won the contract for the creation of a bespoke online-learning solution and has been working in collaboration with subject-matter experts Connecting With People to develop the content for the eLearning. Face-to-face training will also be provided by Suicide-Safer London, London's leading provider of suicide-prevention training and Connecting With People, international experts in suicide and self-harm-prevention training and assessment.

Dr Alys Cole-King, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at Connecting With People, commented, "This is an excellent opportunity to reach a new audience and inform them that suicide is preventable and that we all have a role. Our content, coupled with Virtual College's considerable online-learning authoring and design experience, has created an impactful and engaging learning experience"

"The online-learning resources will work as part of a blended solution reaching a large number of staff quickly while the face-to-face programme is rolled out to key front-line staff."

As part of the brief, Virtual College was tasked with developing an eLearning solution that is user friendly, easily accessible online, offers an assessment at the end of the module, and certification on passing. It is anticipated that the awareness component of the eLearning package will be incorporated into mandatory training, ensuring that all staff are trained as part of the mandatory training cycle.

Virtual College's Health and Social Care Director, Judith Clarkson, commented, "We are used to the challenges of creating bespoke online-learning solutions for complex and sensitive subjects and would like to thank Suicide-Safer London and Connecting With People for their invaluable subject-matter expertise."