QUEEN’S
HEALTH workers and patients across Northern Ireland are to benefit from a new initiative at Queen’s University which better prepares trainee doctors to safely move patients.
In addition to the risk to patients from incorrect handling, back injuries suffered by healthcare workers are estimated to cost the NHS around £400 million and account for 40 per cent of staff absences every year.
Now a third year Medical student at Queen’s, Matthew Anderson, under the direction of Dr Nigel Hart from Queen’s Centre for Medical Education, has developed an innovative, interactive e-learning package to train fellow students how to minimise the risk of injury when moving or handling patients.
Developed in collaboration with physiotherapists and nurses from the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, the package uses text, image and video to demonstrate the correct techniques for moving and handling patients, as well as interactive questions to test the student. There are also personal accounts from people who have suffered lifting and handling injuries and the devastating impact this has had on their lives.
Dr Nigel Hart said: “This package delivers a complete message for all healthcare professionals to ensure a consistent approach to training. Previously training was delivered in a more piecemeal fashion through the various clinical attachments. Moving and handling has probably been under-prioritised in the medical curricula across the UK, evidenced by the specific inclusion of it as an item to be covered in the most recent version of the General Medical Council’s document Tomorrow’s Doctors.”
More than one third of NHS staff absences lasting over three days are caused by moving and handling injuries, resulting in significant costs to the health service through lost work days and, in some cases, early retirement due to ill health.
Director of Queen’s Centre for Medical Education in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Professor Pascal McKeown, said: “Training is essential to reduce the risk to both patients and staff. While it may not be the most glamorous of clinical skills, patient moving and handling is an essential component of high quality healthcare. This multimedia training package is a valuable resource for our Medical students. We hope to share it with colleagues across the health professions and with other Medical schools in the UK.
“E-learning is an important aspect of the medical curriculum at Queen’s, complementing traditional approaches to teaching and enhancing the learning experience for students. While patient handling has been successfully taught through traditional lectures for many years, this online resource provides a more reliable, verifiable and easily managed way to deliver this training to large numbers of students.”
Matthew Anderson, who is originally from Randalstown but now lives in South Belfast, led the project during a summer studentship at the Centre for Medical Education. Earlier this week, Matthew presented the project to some of the leading figures in the education of healthcare professionals at the Irish Network of Medical Educators annual meeting in Dublin.
Matthew said: “The back is one of the most likely places for an injury to occur through poor manual handling, so it is important to know how the spine works, the injuries that can occur, and how posture and biomechanics can have an effect on your spine.
“The online training has already been well received among Queen’s medical students and I hope it will be a valuable resource to those across the healthcare professions who assist patients with movement on a daily basis.
“The project gave me a valuable insight into the benefits of e-learning as a medical education tool, and I hope to develop this project further through another summer studentship later this year.”
UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER
An innovative cross border educational programme in Ireland involving academics in the University of Ulster is having a major impact here and on schools in Israel.
The Dissolving Boundaries programme, which was launched in 1999 by the School of Education on the Coleraine campus in association with counterparts in NUI Maynooth, uses technology such as video-conferencing and a secure internet service to develop links between schools in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
With the support of the Departments of Education in both Belfast and Dublin, it has since reached 40,000 pupils in special, primary and post-primary schools north and south of the border.
Professor Roger Austin of the School of Education explained how teachers involved in the Dissolving Boundaries programme had used ICT to work together to plan a year’s work, based not on divisive political topics but on core curriculum topics such as language, history, science and geography.
“Using ICT to develop teaching plans has led to many benefits for the teachers and their pupils, such as improved standards of literacy and numeracy and a greater degree of cross-border understanding,” Professor Austin said.
“We’ve even had children as young as 10 using ICT to run cross border mini-companies.
“This north-south model of using ICT to build bridges is being heralded as ‘the best of its kind’ in Europe.’
Under his leadership, this pioneering approach has also been developed in Israel to link teachers and young people in orthodox Jewish, secular Jewish and Arab-Israeli schools.
The Israeli Ministry of Education has been so impressed by the success and scale of Dissolving Boundaries that it plans to extend its work to 1,000 schools in the next three years.
‘Unlocking theFuture’, a short documentary which traces the progress of the Dissolving Boundaries programme and funded by the Institute for Research in the SocialSciences (IRISS) at the University of Ulster will be shown for the first time on13 February.
The film will be shown as part of Professor Austin’s Inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Ulster which will be based on his forthcoming book called ‘Online Learning and Community Cohesion’ which has been co-authored with Professor Bill Hunter from Canada. His work includes insights into the way that denominational schooling in Newfoundland came to an end in the mid 1990s after a referendum.
OTHER FE COLLEGES
THE UK’s best Electrical Apprentice, William Falconer, a student at North West Regional College’s Limavady Campus, has received further accolade at a prestigious event in London.
The 19 year old from Claudy received the ‘Apprentice Certificate’ from the Worshipful Company of Lightmongers, in recognition of the skill and talent he has demonstrated in Electrical Installation at a UK wide level in the past year. The ceremony was held at the Tallow Chandlers Hall in London and was presented by the Sheriff of the City of London, Nigel Pullman.
The ‘Apprentice’ certificate is given annually to a young person who has demonstrated exceptional technical skill. It comes just months after William won the gold medal at the UK Skills Show, outshining the nine other top apprentices from across the UK in Electrical Installation.
The Worshipful Company of Lightmongers represents all sections of the Lighting and Electrical industry and the awards are designed to recognise achievements and foster excellence. This certificate places William at the Lightmongers landmark ‘apprentice’ stage of his career and allows him to aim to achieve a Craft and then Master Certificate in the future from the Livery company.