Health training resumes in Hartlepool as hospital gets back to 'new normal'

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust provides critical lifesaving training to clinicians and nurses across the region.

But as the country went into lockdown in March, so did the classrooms at the organisation’s Stockton and Hartlepool sites.

Now, as restrictions start to ease, the Trust has implemented its first timetable of training with the first of the classes being run at University Hospital of Hartlepool.

The Advanced Life Support session is a national course which teaches resuscitation skills to health care professionals in the United Kingdom. It utilises simulations to help medics to deliver lifesaving care.

Dr George Simpson, Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Paediatric Emergency Medicine, said: “Today was a really brilliant opportunity to re-launch our class room based ambitions for 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’.

Dr Simpson added: “Sadly we had to stop our face to face training back in March. Even socially distanced, such is the popularity of our training – we couldn’t accommodate demand.

"Our work was, as with much of the work in the hospital, driven online. Adapting to new ways of working has been successful, but now we need to get back into the classrooms’.”

As the country starts to recover, Dr Simpson said: “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 behaviours 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: https://www.nth.nhs.uk/training/courses-conferences/

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