Maryport hospital is helping nursing staff from across Cumbria hone new skills.

Once nursing staff have passed clinical skills training, they must show they are proficient in those skills.

They do this by caring for patients under strict supervision.

The Maryport and Cockermouth Integrated Care Community (ICC) hub is now arranging such training.

Zoe Larmour, ICC manager for Maryport and Cockermouth, said: “The co-ordinators can match the clinical skill assessment needed to the patients attending and arrange a convenient date and time for staff to come in, be assessed and get signed off.

Newly-registered nurses are required to have clinical skills such as cannulation, venepuncture, catheterisation and IV therapy.

Zoe added: “By providing the Learning Zone at Maryport we can support our whole nursing workforce to increase their skill mix.

“The staff on the unit have worked hard to ensure they are all competent in the relevant skills and have signed up to mentor courses to aid them when signing other staff off.

“The ultimate benefit will be to patients as the more skills are available within community settings the less time patients will have to spend in the acute hospitals and can be treated in the right place at the right time by competent, confident staff.”

This is a first for the NHS in Cumbria.

It is hoped that the system can be rolled out across all ICC hubs across the county at some point the future.

Sue Harper, a clinical education and workplace learning facilitator, said: “Whilst facilitating clinical skills training it became apparent that staff were struggling with opportunities to gain competency sign off as they were having to travel distances to access a competency assessment. Staffing levels within teams also didn’t really allow for time away from the workplace.

“We felt it might be feasible to set up some 'competency hubs' or 'learning zones' within the ICC’s and use Maryport Community Hospital as a pilot to provide a safe accessible training environment giving opportunity for our staff to learn and grow, creating a competent confident workforce.”

The team at Maryport Community Hospital Day Unit have demonstrated both ambition and collaboration and working with the Clinical Skills Team. The leadership team within the unit have demonstrated a real investment in developing not only their own staff but all staff and thus benefiting their patients.