Professor Bryn Baxendale

Professor Bryn Baxendale MB ChB FRCA, Consultant Anaesthetist & Director, Trent Simulation & Clinical Skills Centre, Queens Medical Centre Campus, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

Bryn is a Consultant Anaesthetist (1998 to current) working at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), a major acute teaching hospital within the NHS. He is also Director of the Trent Simulation & Clinical Skills Centre (2004 until current) also based at NUH. In 2009 he was appointed as an Honorary Professor of Clinical Simulation at the School of Psychology, University of Nottingham. He is the co-designer and Medical Lead for the MSc in Quality and Patient Safety Improvement at the University of Nottingham.

In 2009 he became the inaugural President of the Association of Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPiH) which is now established as the leading learned body for simulation in healthcare in the UK. He currently co-chairs the ASPiH Special Interest Group in Human Factors & Erogonomics. He also has national roles with Health Education England and the Royal College of Anaesthetists related to the quality assurance and evaluation of simulation-based education and innovative learning technologies within healthcare.

He is interested particularly in the application and evaluation of innovative educational programmes and simulation-based interventions at an organisational or system level for patient safety improvement, integration of Human Factors and Ergonomics science within healthcare, and implementing effective team training based on identified needs in different clinical and organisational contexts.

Bryn has had extensive experience organizing and speaking at international and national conferences within and outside of the healthcare sector including over 20 invited keynote lectures.

ABSTRACT
Implementing a Targeted Team Training Programme to Improve Critical Patient Safety Skills and Behaviours in the Operating Theatre Environment

Modern day health care requires clinical and managerial staff to make judgements about specific situations based on incomplete or ambiguous information or without access to optimal resources. Additionally, despite the publication of organisational guidelines, standard operating procedures and policies, staff are faced frequently by circumstances that promote alternative behaviours (work-arounds). This behaviour is dynamic and can be exaggerated further when working under stressful or high-risk conditions where the potential for serious patient harm is heightened. When these conditions are prolonged and repeatedly experienced it can have a serious impact on staff well-being.

This presentation will describe the implementation of an evidence-based team training programme for operating theatre teams that incorporates an advanced learning needs analysis (based on situational judgement assessments) and measurement of teamwork perception amongst frontline staff to highlight specific areas of risk in terms of safety behaviours. This is triangulated against data from observations of practice (simulated or in practice) or team-led self-review of performance. Based on team-specific data, targeted simulation-based interventions are provided to enhance how key skills and behaviours are embedded in practice as well as offering opportunity to 'stress test' existing or new safety systems and processes in response to local or national safety alerts.