The Ministry of Health and Birmingham City University partnership was established in 2015. Since then the partnership has capacity-built emergency, trauma, neonatal and critical care nursing. This conference recognised and shared the outcomes of a range of activities conducted by partners since that time.
Over the years, the BCU project team have designed and implemented a 'hub and spoke' model to develop a UK wide ‘Faculty’ of professional expertise. BCU acts as the hub and provides project leadership, coordination, governance and financial responsibility, as well as educators to support strategic activities including curriculum design and validation. Emergency, Trauma and Critical care nurses working in acute NHS Hospitals and a few UK Defence Medical Services personnel act as the 'spoke' and provide specific clinical practical expertise as required.
This model continually increases the number and experience of Faculty members and allows access to a range of technical experts requested by our Zambian partners. In addition, during UK Study Tours, UK Faculty host our Zambian counterparts to provide an insight into NHS emergency, trauma and critical care nursing.
Project aims:
- To share and disseminate activities and outcomes to date from one example of an international health partnership.
Who completed the project?
UK Project Team:
- Prof Joy Notter
- Assc Prof Chris Carter
Centre Advisor:
- Prof Louise Toner
Final outcome
The partnership has successfully completed several large-scale projects as outlined on this website. The project team in conjunction with BCU commissioned an independent evaluation to inform funders and the partnership how volunteers perceived their experiences overseas. The evaluation had two components documentary data analysis and individual interviews.
Themes identified included:
- Importance of specialist nursing education & practice
- Opportunity to join in
- Preparation 'I didn't believe it until I did it'
- Harsh realities
- Impact on teaching staff
- Impact on clinical staff