International Journal of Healthcare Simulation

Background:

The community outreach programme paused during the global pandemic as schools were closed and we were unable to go into schools and colleges to use simulation-based training to educate and inspire young adults to consider a career in the National Health Service. Now that schools and colleges are open it is still difficult to go into schools and colleges due to COVID-19 restrictions. We needed a way to continue to reach out to these schools and colleges using simulation to educate and inspire young adults.

Aim:

The aim was to continue the outreach programme but virtually, via live streams and some pre-recorded simulations. Aiming to help to increase awareness of the different careers, routes into the National Health Service and skills required to work in healthcare. ‘A virtual learning environment is intended not simply to reproduce a classroom environment -’on-line’, but to use the technology to provide a new way of learning’, Britain and Liber ^[1]. By continuing to provide the outreach simulation project I hope to be able to engage with a larger number of learners at a single time.

Method/design:

Streaming live simulations sessions with tutor groups from schools and colleges via platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom using a variety of simulation scenarios. These simulations will be mainly focussing on human factors with some teaching on specific subjects depending on the need of the learners. Example: Virtual work experience for young adults interested in medicine. We plan to mock up our simulation centre to replicate an accident and emergency department and have three admissions of different severity. We will be streaming this to two schools simultaneously and they will have the chance to help prioritize the three patients and explain their choice. The simulations will display good teamwork, good communications skills and leadership. One of the simulations will not include these skills and display poor communication, this will be intentionally included in a simulation for the learners to identify.

Implementation outline:

Feedback forms will be given to all learners to complete asking them if the session has inspired them to consider a career in the National Health Service, feedback will then be used to adjust the way we deliver the virtual side of the outreach programme and perfect the programme so we can continue to educate and inspire young adults.