Tutor trains multidisciplinary team at NHS Nightingale hospital

27 May 2020

Yinka Kuye, regional tutor for the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education, speaks about her involvement in the operation of London's NHS Nightingale hospital

In March, Yinka was asked if she could help to deliver pharmacy education at the NHS Nightingale Hospital London, the hospital built in just ten days at the ExCeL London exhibition centre to tackle Covid-19.

Yinka says she was excited by the opportunity to directly make a difference during the pandemic, but there was a lot to consider before making her decision. After discussing it with her family, she decided to take on this new challenge, working as a pharmacy education liaison lead during its operation.

Yinka's role was to ensure there isn’t a gap between induction training and the clinical model - making sure that healthcare professionals received the training and development they needed to give them the confidence and competence to perform their new role safely.

This also included teaching professionals how to wear their personal protective equipment, and importantly how to communicate when wearing it. With most of the face covered, this can be difficult, but discussion about medication between healthcare professionals is critical. 

Yinka explains that what’s been different and sometimes challenging about this role is that she has been training a multidisciplinary team. Nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, scientists, theatre operators, paramedics — such a varied group has been brought together to learn together. 

In a blog post for the Pharmaceutical Journal, she said: "Top leaders from across the NHS have come together to run this field hospital and I am so impressed by our achievements. We’ve created so many great systems and processes that can be passed on to other Nightingale hospitals, such as the Nightingale intensive care unit quick reference guide, which we developed from scratch.

"I am astounded at what we have accomplished in such a short space of time and I pinch myself to realise I am playing my part in something so innovative: something at the very heart of our response to the pandemic."

• As well as London, CPPE has been involved at all of the Nightingale hospitals in England, including the Manchester Nightingale, where Annie Sellers, senior learning development pharmacist, is currently seconded - assisting the coordinated pharmacy workforce response to the Covid-19 pandemic.