An Education Café set up for hospital theatre practitioners during healthcare staff industrial actions is the winner of The Association for Perioperative Practice’s Perioperative 2024 Team of the Year Award and a £2,000 educational bursary, sponsored by Swann-Morton.
The Education Café was the brainchild of the Theatres Education Team for the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, devised for self-directed online specialist Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities compiled into a menu of QR codes.
“We are proud to win this award for an idea we had to address education in a creative way during industrial actions, and which has proved successful not only in our hospital, but inspired education teams in other hospitals too,” said Jasper Ballecer, Senior Nurse for Theatres Education at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Clinical Lecturer at University College London, and a member of the winning team.
Jasper said that looking to maximise paid working time for staff during down-times, the Theatres Education Team organised education activities for anaesthetics, recovery, and scrub staff for their CPD across the three theatre sites in the Trust.
This had been challenging as staff availability to attend pre-organised sessions was fluid, owing to last-minute changes in surgical activity, rendering face-to-face teaching unsustainable. Learner fatigue had become a secondary deterrent for classroom teaching because of multiple industrial action episodes in close intervals.
Jasper explained: “The aim of this project was to provide in-budget in-house support for theatre practitioners in accessing CPD in different specialist topics within perioperative practice and beyond.
“We did this via the use of a wide selection of free online specialist perioperative CPD programmes, including AfPP resources, collated into a “café menu”. This was then offered to theatre staff rendered idle by the decreased activity during industrial action days.
“Mandatory training e-learning programmes were also part of the menu, with the aim of maintaining high departmental compliance to statutory and mandatory training. Well-being stations with refreshments were also provided by the department to provide a relaxing atmosphere for theatre staff as they completed self-directed CPD activities.”
The project proved a great success; across several months of industrial action, a total of 4,936 CPD hours were completed by staff, with an average of 206 CPD hours per industrial action day.
“This would have been difficult to achieve normally as when theatre is fully active we need to release staff to access CPD activity and would cost more as the staff need to be backfilled,” said Jasper, adding: “The department saved £185,593.60 which would otherwise have been needed to fund CPD programmes and study day backfill in regular times, when CPD in the education café was not provided.”
Staff feedback has been incredibly positive, with themes of the feedback including learning according to one’s pace, freedom to pick CPD based on interest, and feeling looked after while learning.
“Several other trusts have also expressed intent to duplicate this model of CPD provision for their staff,” said Jasper.
He said that from a patient safety standpoint, this exercise ensured that participating staff had the most up-to-date and evidence-based practice in their specialist practice work streams. The completion of mandatory training also bolstered both patient and staff safety by contributing to safe working practices and environments within the department.
“From a well-being perspective, the staff were highly appreciative of the opportunity to complete CPD activity of their own choosing and interest at their own pace as opposed to routine face-to-face and/or classroom training and teaching,” he said, adding: “They also gave positive feedback with regard to management taking the time and effort to provide this opportunity which ultimately contributes to staff well-being and satisfaction.”
Jasper said the winning team would be using the £2,000 bursary to send the team to educational conferences and courses.
“When we created the Education Café during the period of industrial actions, we were just trying to do our jobs and help theatre practitioners, and the fact it has proved such a success, is still adding value, and other trusts are looking to duplicate the model, is a massive boost and something we are all proud of,” said Jasper.
The AfPP Perioperative Team of the Year Award, in memory of Siobhan Rankin and supported by Swann-Morton, is for theatre teams of up to 15 individuals working in the perioperative environment. At least one of the applicants must be an AfPP paying member.
Submissions must fall into one of three categories: Innovation, Best Practice or Safety.
To find out more about this award, as well as other AfPP awards and bursaries, please visit the AfPP website.
Picture shows the award-winning Education Café in use.
