International Journal of Healthcare Simulation

Background and aim:

There is increased availability and development of the advanced clinical practitioner (ACP) course to upskill allied health professionals in clinical, leadership and supervision areas [1]. Locally, ACPs and ACPs in training have not previously had simulation integrated into their training for this role despite this being considered an effective learning method for communication skills [2]. The simulation department was approached with funding to develop a course to add variation to their development programme and enhance learning in areas better targeted through simulation.

Activity:

A survey was sent to the ACP cohort to ascertain their desired learning objectives from simulation training. Then the team met a focus group of ACP trainees to further explore their varied roles and the expected changes moving to the ACP role. From this research, a 1-day course was developed to include scenarios with themes felt to be widely applicable across the umbrella of ‘advanced clinical practice’. Examples included; managing patient expectations, challenging hierarchy, safeguarding, learning disability, mental capacity assessment, difficult supervision. Two courses have been completed with a mix of ACP roles, and scenarios adapted to apply to the specific participants. The debriefs explored how the scenario theme could be applied cross discipline and gave an opportunity for these senior healthcare professionals to share experiences and their individual management strategies.

Findings:

This was a stimulating but challenging course to develop given the seniority and multidisciplinary background of the target group. This required significant creativity and adaptability from the organizing team and multiple scenarios to be designed for participants. The courses generated valuable discussion and all candidates reported the day to be a useful experience with specific learning and development taken from the day. Limitations included some allocated scenarios were felt to be outside the usual job remit of the allocated participant, which could impact on the authenticity and psychological safety of the scenario for that candidate. Despite this, useful discussion of the intended themes was still possible, and this was reinforced by the experience brought from the candidates present.

Conclusion:

Even though ACPs may have similar more complex learning needs in line with their required capabilities, this is challenging to translate into a transferable and valuable simulation course when targeting multiple disciplines with varying amounts of senior experience. We reflect on ways to approach this in the future and would be open to opinions from our esteemed education colleagues.

Ethics statement:

Authors confirm that all relevant ethical standards for research conduct and dissemination have been met. The submitting author confirms that relevant ethical approval was granted, if applicable.