Point of care testing: Quality and Safety ensured at Royal Wolverhampton with Roche Training Specialist Service

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust has recently adopted the Roche Training Specialist Service to deliver consistent and high quality training for their point of care testing (POCT) operators. Tailored to meet the specific needs of the Trust, this service provides confidence that staff are trained to a high standard and will help the Trust to meet CPA (central pathology accreditation) requirements for POCT.

At Wolverhampton, the Trust partners with the Roche Training Specialist Service to provide training for staff using the Roche Accu-Chek® Inform II network-connected blood glucose meters, which are located in 69 different areas/wards at the Trust’s main hospital, New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, as well as in 2 remote renal units and other hospital extended units. The service is also used for training hospital staff on Accu-Chek, cobas® b 221 blood gas analysers, and on the urine test strip analysers, the Urisys® 1100. The equipment is used by a wide range of health professionals, including clinical nursing staff of all grades, health care assistants and phlebotomists.

Point of Care Testing (POCT) Manager at the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, Liz Laverick, comments, “the Roche Training Specialist Service ensures that we have a consistent and high standard of training for our POCT equipment. For example, for Accu-Chek Inform II meters we have a regular training slot as part of the Trust induction and we hold link nurse trainer update days to ensure that cascade training is also of a high standard.”

“The training credits system that we have with Roche allows us to arrange and plan our training up front,” Liz continues. “The Roche Training Specialist has worked closely with us, as an extension to our own team, to help develop our training programme towards compliance with CPA (central pathology accreditation) POCT standards. We have consistent, high quality training that covers all aspects of the process – from sample taking and patient safety to testing and result actions – and the system provides us with records that demonstrate our staff have been trained to this standard. The Training Specialist performs 6 monthly audits, which gives us information on quality assurance compliance and cleanliness of the meters. This will help to identify areas where further measures or training may be required. The Training Specialist is also able to troubleshoot where we perceive we have a specific training issue.”

“The Training Specialist Service gives us confidence that staff are trained to an acceptable standard,” Liz concludes, “As a POCT manager, I can rely on the training programme to cover all the CPA requirements and to ensure that operators know the correct process from consent to result. Hospital staff are receiving face to face, high quality training with a consistent content and, as a result, patient safety is enhanced. Finally, it frees up my time considerably. This is an efficient way to get multiple staff members trained on a range of POCT devices. Without which, I would spend the majority of my time training!.’’

The Roche Training Specialist Service is well researched and regularly reviewed to ensure that it is relevant, up to date and effective. The training, delivered by experienced Roche specialists in conjunction with cobas® academy and observed assessment, is accredited by the Royal College of Nursing, allowing trainees to meet CPD (continuing professional development) needs. Training sessions are interactive with a mix of practical and theory, as well as questions and answers to demonstrate learning. Each trainee is given a training workbook with a certificate of attendance, training checklist, self competence assessment (in line with the knowledge and skills framework), training key points, references and further reading.