The emergency department team at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital have won a national award for their dedication to training and education.
The team won the Emergency Department Learning Environment of the Year award at the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s annual awards ceremony for the way that they support, train and advance the career development of emergency medicine clinicians.
A number of initiatives are in place across the department to support staff members with their learning, helping to secure the best staff for the future of patient care in Hampshire.
Some of the work praised by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine included the dedicated teaching programme on offer at the hospital and the introduction of protected clinical educator shifts, which sees consultants on hand specifically to help develop and teach staff within the department.
The team have also designed an ongoing programme of simulation teaching and have an open culture of learning, where rotas are designed to enable trainee clinicians to maximise their learning opportunities whilst keeping patient care the top priority.
Dr Jay Chitnis, clinical director for unscheduled care at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which includes Basingstoke hospital, as well as hospitals in Winchester and Andover, said: “We have a really cohesive team who all share the same values and vision of what a good learning environment should be, so it’s fantastic that this has been recognised nationally.
“Clinical education is crucial. The better the learning and education we can provide to our staff, the better quality of care our patients will receive. It also helps to continually attract the best people to work at Hampshire Hospitals.”
Alex Whitfield, chief executive of Hampshire Hospitals, added: “I am incredibly proud of what the team have achieved. This represents just one of a number of new ideas and innovations that have been happening in our emergency departments over the last year.
“We continue to see near record attendances in our emergency departments, and our teams work exceptionally hard to provide the best possible care to our patients under this pressure, whilst also training and developing our staff.”
Staff from the trust’s emergency departments also celebrated their hard work at the inaugural ImprovED awards. The teams took the opportunity to review and celebrate the many projects that have been undertaken in the departments over the last year, which have all revolved around continually improving patient care.
