You see first
The welcome lessons and chapter A in the Academy.1Enrol & access
Get started and log in
Everything begins in the VeinTrain Online Academy (our online skills lab). You get a year of access, and the VeinTrain team handles your booking, your materials and your joining details.
Three things to do first
- Log in to the VeinTrain Online Academy with your welcome-email details.
- Open your course and start at chapter A, Get started.
- Watch the first short lessons before anything else.
What arrives in your hands?
- Posted to your letterbox
- Given by your ward manager
- Given out in class
- Handed out in workshops
3Learn online
Learn online, at your own pace
Your course runs as chapters A to I, from Get started to Next steps. You watch, read and check your understanding before you ever pick up a needle.
4Practise
Practise on your VeinTrain simulator
Build your vein, then practise deliberately. The QR code on your materials opens a short refresher for each step, right at the bench. You practise on a simulator, not on a patient. Start with your see-through vein. It is see-through on purpose. Our vein is a pop-up vein, and you can use other veins as well.
Do this
- Build your vein before your first demonstration.
- Scan the QR on your vein set and follow the step.
- Repeat each step three times.
The clinical bay, brought to you
While you learn online, the clinical bay comes to you. These two short clips are micro teaching: watch a demonstration, or come back when you get stuck, for example when the vein blows.
Then, in the clinical area, watch where your fingers are. Keep your fingers out of the way on the training unit.
5Apply with a trainer
Apply it with a trainer
Where your route includes it, you join a live session, online or in person, to apply what you have practised with a VeinTrain trainer who coaches you and gives feedback.
Live online or in person
Your joining details arrive by email. Have your simulator built and your workspace ready, then practise with live coaching and feedback.
Where routes branch
Training to teach others? See the trainer route. Training through an organisation? See the organisation route.
6Supervised practice & local policy
Supervised practice, guided by your local policy
We assure the governance of your skills throughout the process. Your Structured Learning Programme takes you through your skills and on to competency, according to your local policies and the clinical guidance you follow.
The Structured Learning Programme
Your course includes a Structured Learning Programme. It records your supervised practice and who signs off each step. Your supervisor or assessor completes it with you. You can also take a skills ability assessment. It is part of the online pocket training with the Structured Learning Programme, in the app or as a booklet, and it builds up within your local arrangements.
Guidance we follow
We follow national UK and international guidance. For the NHS, that means national guidance adapted locally. In the HALO system, Gold and Platinum centres are fully adapted to their own policies.
7Keep learning
Keep learning
Confidence comes from practice that continues. Come back during your year of access, refresh your skills, and keep up with what is changing in vascular access. Keep learning in the HALO Intelligence Hub and the Knowledge Hub, and join the community of practice.
Do this
- Note one thing you would do differently next time.
- Share it with your supervisor or team.
Community of practice
We transform through a community of practice. If your organisation already has one, we link to it. Your delegates can connect in the online community too, so they learn together and reach online, live and in-person sessions, seminars and VeinTrain-approved events directly from there. Facing a stock change or a training surge? Organisational learning design is built around it and available to you: come and talk it through, and help shape the next cannula training. Join the community of practice in the HALO Intelligence Hub.
From learner to trainer
Many learners become trainers. The training is thorough, and if you enjoy it you can go deeper. There may also be a chance to join our training bank, with the permission of any organisation you work for. See the trainer route.
TTrainers, supervisors & organisations
For trainers, supervisors and organisations
It all starts from the learner and builds outward, upward and sideways. Enabled learnership becomes enabled leadership. Train the Trainer is a structured cascade, so everyone stays supported as the system grows.
TrainTrainer guide
How the cascade works
- Typically one trainer for about 100 delegates, with two supervisors and around ten links alongside.
- Each ward has a link trainer and a link supervisor, usually looking after about 20 people. Larger wards can have two or three links.
- A manager coordinates, and the supervisors are linked together as the system grows.
- The VeinTrain simulator does a lot of the work. Then comes one workshop, in person, online or asynchronous, as needed.
The journey
Come to the class
→
One-to-one with the trainer and super trainer
→
Link in, and grow a link on each ward
People practise at home on the simulator, so when they come onto the ward they are ready to go. That is the scalable part: nobody is hunting for equipment or holding the device. They have supervision online, which reduces the pressure on the hospital space, and community practice to learn alongside. The pathway keeps supporting them, and it keeps improving, every day a little better. You set local policy; HALO provides the structure that fits around it.
What the organisation adds
- A consistent route for training across a service or site.
- Trainer capacity through HALO Centres and Train the Trainer.
- Structure alongside your local policy and sign-off.
From the learner outward
- Learner and their ward link
- Service or site trainers and supervisors
- Provider trust or organisation
- ICB integrated care board
Illustrative. It shows how learning connects outward and does not imply a live deployment at any organisation.
Full class, or workshops
The full class can be delivered with supervisors. For surge and device change it is different: we run workshops on the practical skill, and we support the trainers with that.
Packages
Trainer and supervisor packages come in different price ranges. See the current price ranges.
How Train the Trainer works → Training at scale with VeinTrain → What is HALO
What VeinTrain is
A practical, repeatable way to learn vascular access
VeinTrain is a hands-on learning system for IV cannulation, IV line, venepuncture and phlebotomy. You learn online, practise on a flat-pack vein simulator, and build your skills under supervision, the same way real skill is built: by doing it, often, with feedback.
1 Learn
Online, at your own pace, with a simulator at home.
Online, at your own pace, with a simulator at home.
→
2 Train
Apply it with a trainer, then practise under supervision.
Apply it with a trainer, then practise under supervision.
→
3 Scale
Ward by ward, team by team, through your organisation.
Ward by ward, team by team, through your organisation.
DPhysical deployment
What you need in person, and how it works
HALO teaching can happen in many suitable hospital spaces. A site narrows to a practical teaching location, a secure base, and then the ward or bed-space rehearsal. Location types are illustrative, not a floor plan of any named site.
- Layer 1Hospital siteWorking example only
- Layer 2Building / levelTo confirm locally
- Layer 3Practical teaching locationDedicated secure base
- Layer 4Secure HALO baseThis location is the base
- Layer 5Ward / bed-space rehearsalSee practice →
Ward or departmentUsually set up and cleared each session.
Wide atrium or large hallUsually set up and cleared each day.
Temporarily allocated canteen zoneSet up and cleared around service times.
RecommendedDedicated room or secure pop-up baseOne allocated space that stays set up for the week and can be secured overnight, so teaching can repeat quickly.
Part of a living system
The HALO ecosystem
Your learning connects into the wider HALO ecosystem. Explore it, from the global picture down to a local service, and see where learning and evidence meet practice.
Living systemExplore the interactive HALO ecosystem globeFrom the global picture to local learning. Opens in a new page.
Across a groupSee this across a group: the UK ICB deployment explorerICB level: region, integrated care board, provider, site. Opens in a new page.
Across a hospitalSee this across a hospital deployment exampleThe whole-hospital demonstrator. Illustrative, opens in a new page.
- Global the worldwide HALO ecosystem
- UK · England national picture
- NHS region regional view
- ICB integrated care board
- Provider an organisation or trust
- Site / service a hospital or service
- Local deployment where you work, see what you need in person
This hierarchy is illustrative. It shows how learning connects from the global picture to a local service. It does not imply ownership, territory, a named partnership or a live deployment at any organisation.
Why we do it this way
Built around the learner, and around the organisation
VeinTrain comes from research and practice in how vascular access skill is really built: by doing it, often, with feedback. So we do not just deliver a course. The learning surrounds the learner with practice, supervision and support, and surrounds the organisation with structure, trainers and a living evidence base that keeps improving.