Revamp of Safe Administration of Medicines (SAMS)

As a recently appointed clinical skills educator it’s been my primary aim to revamp some of the teaching and training provided by the department to make it more interactive and engaging. My colleagues and I have worked with pharmacy, the medicines safety group and the risk management group to develop and new and interactive take on the Safe Administration of Medicines update for registered staff. The new format utilises a video to draw out discussion of the correct procedure for administering medications, whilst, highlighting the dangers of letting things become ‘routine’. The session relies heavily on group work which is ‘scenario based’ to promote discussion around the human factors in medication administration errors, utilising real BTHFT scenarios to give local context to the session.

The sessions have been running in their new format for around two weeks with feedback thus far being positive. 86.2% of candidates who have attended one of the new sessions stated the content of the session to be excellent. With feedback such as, “Good revamp of old course”, “Good use of scenarios, a thoroughly interactive session” and “Video presentation excellent- really thought provoking”. Hopefully we will see you on a session soon and you can see if you agree.

Rachel Hodgson – Clinical Skills Lead