A North East health care trust has today spoken about returning to a new normal in the pursuit of outstanding education provision within the organisation.
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust provided critical lifesaving training to clinicians and nurses across the region. As the country went into lockdown on 23 March 2020, major changes were made in the classrooms across Stockton and Hartlepool.
Dr George Simpson, Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Paediatric Emergency Medicine explains more ‘we had to change much of our face to face training back in March. The nature of our provision of course evolved as the pandemic took hold. We had to implement new ways of teaching in a landscape that was continuously changing for our clinicians. Some of our work was, as with much of the work in the hospital, driven online. Our classrooms, which are always full had to be adapted to accommodate social distancing. Adapting to new ways of working has been successful, and many of the developments will support our ongoing ambitions for education and training for the Trust.
Advanced Life Support
As restrictions start to ease, the Trust has now implemented its first timetable of training for the national programme – Advanced Life Support (ALS) with the first of the classes being run at University Hospital of Hartlepool (pictured).
ALS is a national course teaching evidence-based resuscitation guidelines and skills to health care professionals in the United Kingdom. It utilises simulations to help medics to deliver lifesaving care.
Dr Simpson adds ‘today was a really brilliant opportunity to re-launch our class room based ambitions for ALS within the Trust. Each year we have hundreds of medics choose our organisation as their learning provider. We are exceptionally proud of what we deliver, and to be here in Hartlepool, even with social distancing measures in place, we can get back to what we do best’.
Keep going
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust continued to deliver an ongoing programme of education throughout the ongoing COVID-19 situation. Zeeshan Uddin, Resuscitation Officer for the organisation offers an insight into some of the innovations that are being delivered on an ongoing basis “since lock down started back in March, we have trained over 600 colleagues in readiness to deal with their ever changing landscape. From Immediate Life Support to Acute Illness Management, we have been able to visit all functional wards across the Trust, offering targeted training for high acuity areas. Our colleagues needed us to keep going, to keep supporting and keep delivering – the health care trusts across Tees Valley could ill afford to switch our function off, when we are so dedicated to patient safety”.
COVID-19 has impacted individuals, businesses and organisations on an enormous scale, and as the country starts to recover, Dr Simpson has some sage advice ‘even though we are seeing an easing in some of the restrictions, there is every possibility that COVID may surge again if we do not continue to remain diligent. The way we conduct our behaviors now will ultimately reflect on what happens moving forward. We need our communities across the Tees Valley to keep distancing, keep washing those hands, and ultimately to keep going.
For more information about courses available with North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust visit our courses page.
