Authors:

• Dr Lydia Shatananda, ST6 Anaesthetist in Training, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire
• Dr Ambreen Yasin, Consultant Anaesthetist, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire

Simulation plays a key role in medical education, particularly in anaesthesia, where it has an essential role in training and updating skills. 

Simulation training provides anaesthetists in training with experience to supplement patient interactions, both as a single specialty and as part of a multidisciplinary team. Through this experiential learning, participants can make changes to their patient care and behaviour, leading to improved patient outcomes.

Our nursing and allied healthcare professional (AHP) colleagues will often have a different experience of CPD to ourselves, frequently lacking in these simulation training opportunities. Knowing how valuable this experience can be for personal development, we developed, in a joint project with the Coventry Simulation Team, an in-situ paediatric simulation training model for AHPs to help improve their technical and socio-cognitive skills. Our aims were to meet the local standards in the West Midlands and provide quarterly paediatric training within the post-anaesthetic care unit (PACU).

Simulation can be delivered as off-site simulation (OSS) in a simulation centre or in-situ simulation (ISS). ISS has developed over the last two decades and is well suited to the teaching of technical skills, alongside improvement of human factors such as communication, teamworking, and decision-making.