Educating health care practitioners: an in depth evaluation of the Mobile Skills Unit (MSU) training programme in three exemplar venues

Introduction: The Clinical Skills Managed Educational Network (CS MEN) was established in 2008 to support excellence in clinical skills education and practice through the use of simulation. The long term aim is to enhance standards of care and patient experience. One of the key strategies implemented to achieve this was the provision of an MSU to take standard simulation facilities and trained educators to health care practitioners in their communities in order to support standards of practice as well as the retention of quality staff. The MSU is an integral component of the CSMEN and is equipped with state of the art specialist manikins and equipment.
Method: This paper presents an analysis of the evaluation by participants of three venues visited by the MSU in 2015. The range of training will be shared from across the three sites demonstrating both similarities and differences.
Results: The benefits of the MSU as reported by the 155 participants focuses on skills development and maintenance. In all three venues participants highlighted the multi- professional training opportunities the MSU provided particularly practising emergency scenarios. For local communities the MSU also provided opportunities for the public to learn new skills.
Conclusion: The MSU visits and programmes can be linked to other CSMEN training resources and other relevant skills training for remote and rural practitioners, for example BASICS. This maximises the prevention of skill decay.

This abstract was presented at the Innovative Solutions in Remote Healthcare - 'Rethinking Remote' conference, 23-24 May 2016, Inverness, Scotland.