New England - Advanced Paediatric Life Support
The Northern Child Health Network's Rural Paediatric Outreach CNC and the Newborn (and Paediatric) Emergency Transport Service (NETS) in conjunction with local clinicians presented two one-day paediatric resuscitation/life support workshops. The workshops provided an opportunity to develop and enhance clinical skills and professional support networks between metropolitan health services and New England Area Health Service. Workshops were open to emergency nurses and nurses working with children.
Presentations included:
- Why treat children differently
- Recognising the sick child
- Basic Life Support
- Fluid management
- The child with breathing difficulties
- Paediatric pain management
- Structured approach to the seriously injured child
All participants were asked to complete an evaluation form. Successful completion of the following four skills stations on the day demonstrated application of acquired knowledge of theory to practice:
- Intraosseous insertion
- Respiratory workshop
- Trauma
- Case scenarios
100% of participants completed the evaluation form. Overwhelmingly the outcomes were positive with all respondents rating the course content as relevant to their work.
Given a choice of 1-5 rating, 100% of the six presentations and four workstations were rated at 3 - 5 in Tamworth and 4-5 in Inverell ie, "relevant", "moderately relevant" or "highly relevant".
Attendance at these workshops and the overwhelmingly positive response to the course content confirmed the need to continue to develop and maintain peer support mechanisms and to outreach educational opportunities to rural child health service providers, in consultation with rural area health services. Therefore, as this was a one-off project, the NCHN outreach CNC in conjunction with the New England child health CNC will continue to provide similar education programmes but with a limited budget.