25 February 2019
A team of front-line clinicians at Shropshire’s two acute hospitals came together this week to enhance their life-saving skills thanks to a new simulation training suite.
Clinical staff with one of the simulation suite manikins
A group of Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs), Physician Associates and Physios went through a number of real-life scenarios that they could encounter within The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust’s (SaTH) busy A&E Departments, using real life manikins that speak, blink and even bleed.
They were put through their paces by A&E Consultant Dodiy Herman, who says the team-building in a challenging, but risk-free, simulated clinical environment is essential to SaTH, which runs the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford “growing its own workforce”.
He said: “Practical education of this nature is vital, so we’re hugely lucky to have a simulation suite for our healthcare professionals. We have a vision to train not just ACPs, but to roll out education to include the new nursing staff we recruit, junior doctors, healthcare assistants and medical students in an acute setting. In the future we will be able to run the suite like a ward to give our staff confidence and the requisite skills to work together effectively.”
“The simulation suite will help us to retain brilliant people within our trust, to make them feel valued, so we can educate them and empower them to really contribute to SaTH.”
Emma Jones, Lead Advanced Clinical Practitioner, said: “The ACP programme started five years ago at SaTH and has been a huge success. We now have 25 ACPs, with hundreds of years combined experience, working across PRH and RSH, which allows us to deliver the very best patient care.”
“ACP roles are used to enhance the medical workforce, and as they are trained to be able to see any patient who enters our buildings, they can offer care that suits the needs of our patients.”