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Welcome to the NES Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) education and resources hub. This hub aims to enhance the safety, effectiveness, and usability of Health and Social Care systems by providing educational resources and practical tools that support the integration of Human Factors principles across all levels of policy, practice, education, and research.

Select the level that matches your learning goal

The goal at this level is to provide learning products to enable learners to develop a foundational awareness of Human Factors.

This goal at this level is to equip learners with practical skills to integrate Human Factors into their routine tasks.

The goal here is on developing leaders and champions of Human Factors who can drive cultural and procedural changes within their organisations.

This level is intended to cultivate experts who can contribute to the advancement of Human Factors as a discipline.

How do I use this Hub?

The hub is particularly valuable for individuals and teams seeking to enhance their understanding of Complex Systems and to apply a Systems Approach and human-centred design thinking to their work.

The resources are presented using the Levels: 

  1. Informed
  2. Skilled
  3. Enhanced 
  4. Specialist

These levels offer pathways of learning depending on the level of experience you have regarding Human Factors.  

Read the goal for each of the levels and select the icons to explore the educational resources in each level. 

About Human Factors

The International Ergonomics Association defines Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) as:

The scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimise human well-being and overall system performance.

HF Design and Q logo combined

Health and Social Care settings are arguably the most complex work systems to ever exist.  Human Factors is a discipline that is well suited to studying and understanding Complex Systems and improving them through joint application of a ‘Systems Approach’ and ‘human-centred design thinking’.  This is vital if we wish to further improve our own care systems and outcomes for patients, service users, clients, families and our workforce.

While there is growing interest in the benefits of Human Factors in health and care, a lack of suitably qualified and experienced professionals to support progress is evident, particularly when compared with other high-risk industries.    

Building capacity and capability across key workforce groups in the NHS and social care is a key goal of NHS Education for Scotland and partners.  

These educational resource pages work towards building this capacity, and is supported by the Q Community which is a Health Foundation initiative.

How can I evidence my learning?

You may wish to upload your work to a professional portfolio, so that you can capture your continuous professional development. 

To do this you can use the Professional portfolio on Turas. 

Everyone with a Turas account has access to this function. You can use the portfolio to showcase your learning to peers, mentors, and line managers. Check out our Guide to Using Turas Professional Portfolio