International success for bespoke training courses

Northumbria University’s excellent reputation in developing bespoke training courses for global organisations has led to Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health sending its fifth delegation of staff to learn in the North East of England.

The University works with organisations in a number of ways, providing or developing short courses, professional qualifications, sponsored projects, continual professional development courses and executive coaching to help businesses meet their changing needs and respond to new innovations or regulations.

One successful example of this work is with the Thai Ministry of Public Health. The Ministry has been sending its staff to Northumbria’s campus in Newcastle for the last two years to undertake intensive training sessions on how to use simulated adult, child and infant mannequins in healthcare teaching.

Northumbria University uses a number of these specialist devices when teaching nurses. They can be programmed to display a range of conditions, such as heart failure, stroke or asthma attack. This helps students to practice and perform core skills and emergency procedures before going onto the wards and working with real-life patients.

A number of nursing colleges in Thailand are now beginning to use the patient mannequins and, as a result, the Thai Ministry of Public Health has been sending nurse educators from its colleges to the University to learn how to use the mannequins.

Using an approach called ‘train the trainer’ the nurse educators take the knowledge they have gained at Northumbria back home to cascade it to other professionals. To date, five delegations totalling more than 130 students have travelled to the University for intensive two-week training sessions.

Margaret Rowe, Associate Dean for Business and Engagement in Northumbria’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, explained: “Northumbria University can develop programmes to meet bespoke requirements for any organisation to meet their needs. This isn’t only in healthcare, it is also in areas that the University teaches in, such as leadership in education, creative thinking, business management and leadership, for example.

“We have developed a strong partnership with the Ministry of Public Health Thailand over the last few years, who come to us for the quality of our teaching and research, and our very strong relationships with a number of countries. Our initial partnership around nurse education proved so successful that it has been widened out into other important policy agendas, such as family medicine and public health policy.

Panphet Sakulkoo, a registered nurse working in the Boromarajonani College of Nursing in North East Thailand, is one of the students who recently spent two weeks studying at Northumbria University. “It is a great opportunity to study here,” she said. “The teachers have given me more information, more skills and more experience that I can apply in my own teaching.”

Margaret added: “There is a lot of demand for universities to provide professional training and we have a great deal of interest from countries around the world, particularly China, with people from Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin coming over to Northumbria to learn from our leading academics and researchers.”

Northumbria University can provide businesses with a varied range of support, including helping to identify and bid for funding assistance. Any businesses wanting more information on how to work with the University should visit www.northumbria.ac.uk/business-services