Improving Transfer Outcomes
The Critical Care Network is host to a wealth of training and development materials to help Healthcare Professionals provide the best patient journey possible during episodes of Critical Care Transfers
The North West London Critical Care Network developed a Transfer training course as part of a strategic improvement project to better manage critical care transfers within the Network. The Network aim is that all critical care patient transfers are undertaken by staff who have been exposed to transfer training.
The Critical Care Transfer Training course is a multi-disciplinary course, free to network member organisations, consisting of a full day with presentations, filmed material, workshops and a written test (or celebration of learning). These are delivered by clinicians working in critical care and emergency departments in North West London. For more information about the Network course or if you would like to facilitate a locally delivered course contact us for more information.
Transfer training course – example timetable
Topics include:
- Transfer governance
- Pre-transfer stabilisation
- Specific transfer physiology
- Specific management of aortic and neurosurgical emergencies
- Trouble shooting equipment problems
- Transfer process management
Course materials and documentation includes:
Ambulance call sign flowchart– updated 2017
Top tips when booking an LAS ambulance (2017)
Network transfer training videos based on the core messages of the transfer training course can be found in this website.
We have been asked frequently “what constitutes training in transfers?”. Experience and training in transferring critically ill patients will typically fall along a spectrum. In order to facilitate communication amongst staff, we have developed a ‘tiered’ approach to describing transfer experience; this is not meant to be proscriptive but simply to aid comparison of different clinicians’ experiences.
The decision on suitability of any member of staff to transfer a patient must always be made locally and ultimately lies with the on-call Consultant Intensivist / Senior Nurse; however, the tiered approach may aid such decision-making
Description of Transfer Training Tiers – Draft 2014