Training News

Eastwood Park wins significant decontamination contract with NHS Education for Scotland | Dec 07

Eastwood Park is pleased to announce it has won a contract to take part in a significant decontamination health care initiative with NHS Education for Scotland (NES)NES is undertaking a major on-going exercise to introduce and improve the education for all practitioners and staff engaged in the decontamination of medical devices. This is just one part of a holistic approach to addressing concerns about decontamination across complete hospital practices. At the request of NES, Eastwood Park is starting by defining competencies of people working in the decontamination area and is producing a matrix for the decontamination cycle, which will identify the core skills, competencies and knowledge needed by staff working in this area. This work will be widely consulted upon with all key stakeholders.

Eastwood Park is working with a curriculum advisory group representing NES, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) and service users to develop content, which will be hosted on the NES Healthcare Associated Infection Virtual Learning Environment, managed by The Knowledge Business. It is anticipated that the programme will be available from late Spring 2008.

John Thatcher CEO and Director of Training at Eastwood Park Training & Conference Centre said: “It is so refreshing to be involved in an integrated learning approach, developing competences which will be based on underpinning theory. A more extensive educational approach is planned by NES in partnership with HPS to meet the needs of other staff groups working in decontamination.”

Eastwood Park has already trained three groups of endoscopy suite managers from Scotland. Similarly Eastwood Park is already delivering decontamination NVQs in Scotland including the Shetland Isles, and Isle of Anglesey in conjunction with the IDSc.

Another important investment by NES, in partnership with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, is the setting up of a dedicated training skills lab with an appointed training officer within the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Central Decontamination Unit in Cowlairs, Glasgow.