ABSTRACT
Introduction Bowel cancer screening age extension, 'faster diagnosis' and COVID-related backlog all increase demand on endoscopy services. A competent workforce is central to endoscopy delivery but service pressure, lack of dedicated training time, and poor/unrefined trainer skills may be barriers to effective staff training. Immersive training programmes have improved nurse training in other settings1 and achieved success in the training of endoscopists.2 We, therefore, instituted a novel 4-week immersive nurse training programme for new starters to prepare workforce members for tasks in diagnostic luminal endoscopy. Methods Newly appointed registered nurses in Endoscopy commenced a dedicated, ring-fenced 4-week hybrid programme of didactic and supported practical teaching for 3 days per week. Trainees completed pre-training, midpoint, end of training and post-training online questionnaires utilising Likert scales where appropriate. Recorded feedback included indicators on trainee knowledge of endoscopy, confidence, and anxiety level on caring for patients in admission, procedure room, recovery, and discharge. Results Due to staggered commencement dates, preceding time in endoscopy varied (62% no exposure, 38% some exposure in preceding 6 months). Pre-course 62.2% and 66.7% of responses showed low confidence levels in undertaking the tasks of admitting, room preparation, endoscopy assistant roles, recovery and discharge of gastroscopy and colonoscopy patients respectively. In contrast at completion 74.3% and 75.6% of responses showed confidence or high confidence in these competencies. Further data at 6 months post training noted confidence to be sustained with 98.5% of responses describing no anxiety undertaking above tasks and 1.5% minor anxiety. Additionally 60% of trainees felt able train others and all had commenced GI bleed on-call work. Conclusions Rapid and agile re-skilling of the workforce to meet staff learning needs and importantly patient safety outcomes is heralded by HEE in other nurse groups. Our pilot results indicate immersive training meets the learning needs of Endoscopy nurses and correlates with confidence in job roles. Further work will correlate JAG workforce competencies and look at implementation to a wider, multi-site training group.