Frimley Health’s Journey, Transferring Learning Data to ESR with Strategic Insight
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, a major provider of acute and specialist healthcare services in the South East of England, supports a workforce of over 13500 staff through its integrated use of the Electronic Staff Record (ESR) system. As part of its strategic workforce planning and digital transformation efforts, the Trust has been actively optimising ESR to enhance employee self-service, streamline onboarding, and improve data quality across the employee lifecycle. Recent developments include the rollout of supervisor self-service, enhancements to learning management, and the introduction of appraisal date recording - all aligned with national NHS People Digital Strategy goals.
Background and Challenge
At Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, the transition from the legacy MAST (Mandatory and Statutory Training) system to the national ESR Learning Management System was a major undertaking. With over one million data records, 13,500 employees, and more than 800 courses in scope, the challenge was not just technical - it was strategic.
The goal was to ensure that learning records were transferred accurately and sustainably, while also reducing duplication and preparing the Trust for a more streamlined, ESR-led future.
Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Seek Support Early
One of the most valuable steps we took was reaching out for help early in the process. By reviewing what others had done before us and actively engaging with our ESR implementation advisers, we were able to draw on their experience and insight. Nelson’s guidance, in particular, was instrumental—helping us navigate challenges, resolve issues efficiently, and build confidence in our approach. He was also able to use his network of trusts he had supported in the past to connect us with key stakeholders at other organisations, giving us the opportunity to learn from their experiences and apply those insights to our own implementation.
Lesson 2: Know What You’re Moving
The first step was to define the scope of the transfer. We focused on CSTF-aligned training and made sure we had a validated list of what we wanted to move. This meant working closely with stakeholders to confirm course mappings, expiry rules, and equivalencies. Having a clear, validated list up front saved significant time and rework later.
Lesson 3: Be Specific About What You’re Asking
It’s not just about what you want to upload—it’s about how you ask for it. We had to repeat an upload because we hadn’t included end dates on some local competencies. In another case, we matched records to the wrong version of a safeguarding course. These issues arose from unclear or overly technical questions. The takeaway? Think about how to phrase your questions in a way that non-experts can understand and respond to accurately.
Lesson 4: Make It Repeatable
The transfer was completed over 18 separate uploads, each capped at 25,000 records. This taught us the importance of designing a repeatable process. Whether it was data formatting, validation, or upload sequencing, we built templates and checks that could be reused - because when you’re doing something 18 times, consistency is everything.
Lesson 5: Decide Early on Competency Application
One of the most critical decisions was how to apply training competencies. We chose to apply them at the position level, rather than the individual level and those that applied to the whole trust at Business Group. This approach aligned with our long-term sustainability goals and allowed for easier maintenance and reporting. It also ensured that new starters in the same role would automatically inherit the correct training requirements.
Lesson 6: Use the Resources You’ve Got
We uploaded ESR data in two ways:
- Using the Data Loader tool internally - this allowed us to make updates to any errors or changes needed for smaller numbers of records, and we used it for most of the competence requirements uploads.
- With support from the ESR Central Team, who helped us process larger volumes - particularly for the competency uploads, where the scale was greater.
Because we were working to a fixed timeline, we planned each upload based on how many people were targeted, ensuring we maximised the number of records per load.
Lesson 7: Have a Plan and a Timeline
It was only once we mapped out how long the uploads would take - and why this needed to be a priority—that we really gained momentum. That clarity helped us align other elements like communications and training, and it kept expectations realistic. We also factored in unavoidable downtime—not just for the system, but for people too. In our case, this included the Christmas period, when availability naturally dipped. Avoid overpromising; instead, focus on delivering what’s achievable within your timeframe.
Lesson 8: Plan for Things to Go Wrong
No matter how good your analysis is, you’ll still need to repeat steps - and things will go wrong. We built time into our plan for rework, corrections, and unexpected issues. That buffer proved essential. For example, one of our uploads failed because a local competency had only been created in ESR earlier that year, but staff had held that competency for several years. The system couldn’t reconcile the dates, and we had to rework the data. Planning for these kinds of edge cases made all the difference.
Outcomes
The result was a clean, accurate, and future-proofed learning record system. We successfully moved just over 250,000 records from our old MAST system into ESR. Post-migration, our training compliance was within 0.4% of the figures reported in the legacy system - well within the tolerance we had set for ourselves. By focusing on current compliance and holding historic data externally, we avoided the pitfalls of error-prone bulk uploads and dual-system complexity. ESR is now positioned as the single source of truth for training compliance at Frimley Health.