Support at the toughest of times
AS the first Covid wave began to peak, our education team at Queenscourt recognised there would be an urgent need for end- of-life training, and stepped up to deliver over 1,000 online sessions to help healthcare professionals cope with the intense demands of the pandemic.
The usual face-to-face methods were not an option, so the team shifted to providing virtual training based on Extending Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO), an online education and learning approach used at Queenscourt’s Terence Burgess Education Centre since December 2018.
The team were able to offer ECHO Networks to various healthcare professionals including GPs, care home managers, practice pharmacists, district nurses and undergraduate medical students from across Southport, Formby, South Sefton and West Lancashire. The sessions became vital forums for healthcare professionals to continue to work collaboratively and keep everyone updated with the latest information and training during the pandemic.
Feedback from the various training sessions has been very positive. One recipient said: “The sessions have been a great support over the past year. They have been informative and helped us to support our residents. Not only that, but they have been a good support for our mental health. Being able to talk together, share experiences and learn from each other has been invaluable.”
Ten sessions were delivered during the first wave of the pandemic, followed by another eight during the second wave and 12 in the third wave. Between them it meant more than 1,000 individual episodes of endof-life training were given.
Queenscourt also supported undergraduate medical students whose clinical attachment was interrupted by the start of the pandemic with virtual tutorials, casebased learning and exit-day presentations.
Karen Groves, medical & education director at Queenscourt Hospice, said “I’m extremely proud of everything the team achieved to support our healthcare workers in incredibly difficult circumstances.”
The training normally provided by Queenscourt’s education team had to go online over the last 15 months – but feedback from the various sesssion has been very positive according to medical & education director Karen Groves, left