New Simulation and Clinical Skills Centre opens at The Royal Oldham Hospital

Dinwoodie Centre, The Royal Oldham Hospital

A new £600,000 state of the art Simulation and Clinical Skills Centre, known as the Dinwoodie Centre, has officially opened at The Royal Oldham Hospital.

The new centre will help enhance clinical training and equip doctors, nurses, midwives and other clinical staff with the skills to provide the highest possible patient care, both in hospital and out in the community.

The Dinwoodie Centre, located at L Block, was designed by DMWR Architects and developed by the Simulation and Clinical Skills Team at the Trust working in partnership with the Trust Estates Department to enhance the training and support already on offer at the Trust.

In order to help fund this project the Learning and Organisational Development (L&OD) Team successfully bid and secured funds from The Dinwoodie Charity with some additional funding coming from Health Education England.

The new centre includes a two bay simulation ward, a one bay simulated acute setting, a large clinical skills room and two clinical training rooms. This wide variety of clinical settings means that all healthcare professionals, from all disciplines, have the opportunity to access hands on training in an environment that reflects their clinical practice.

The centre has a wide range of manikins and a birthing simulator which mean we can help support our maternity services with relevant training packages.

Katherine Robertson, L&OD project manager for the Enhancement of Simulation at the Trust said: “I’m thrilled that the new Simulation and Clinical Skills Centre at The Royal Oldham Hospital is now officially open, and we can now offer high quality simulation training to more staff, which has been proven to improve patient experience and outcomes.

"My sincere thanks go to everyone who has supported this project, especially the generosity of the Dinwoodie Charitable Trust which made this project a reality.”

Richard Arkle, chairman of the Dinwoodie Charitable Company, said: “We are very pleased to have been able to contribute to this project to enable the enhancement of the skills of the medical staff in this state of the art training facility at this important hospital.”

Elaine Inglesby-Burke, chief nurse, and Chris Brookes, chief medical officer at the Trust both attended the opening along with Ian Goalan and Richard Arckle, from the Dinwoodie charity.