Hong Kong visit

Edge Hill University's healthcare expertise is being exported to hospitals in Hong Kong.

A delegation of six Accident and Emergency department managers is visiting the University to learn more about the UK hospital system. The visit follows several trips by Edge Hill academics to Hong Kong, where they have been training doctors, nurses and managers.

The A&E managers are all trained nurses and have come to Edge Hill specifically to look at the way the hospital admissions system works in the UK.

Their four-week trip will combine both theory and practice, with each of the managers completing placements in local NHS trusts - in Aintree, Southport and Ormskirk, St Helens and Knowsley, the Royal Liverpool and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh. They will also attend training sessions on campus and a conference in Manchester which will focus on prescribing.

There has already been substantial contact between Edge Hill and healthcare professionals in Hong Kong, with staff running courses in leadership and management. Now there are plans to extend the courses by offering online education and training in the future.

Victoria Perrin, the Project Leader, and a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Edge Hill University, said: "A&E departments in Hong Kong are currently around 10 years behind those in the UK.

"The visitors are not looking at the departments clinically, but are looking at the way the admissions systems work - for example, the triage system, how the paramedic service is run, and the roles of emergency nurse practitioners and the advanced practitioners who are based in each hospital. They are also looking at how clinics are run and how hospitals avoid admissions via the A&E departments by offering facilities such as walk-in centres, where minor injuries can be treated and nurses prescribe treatment for certain conditions.

"They don't have anything like that in Hong Kong so the team is gathering information to take back with them which can then be developed to bring about some change.

"It seems to be going very well. All the hospital trusts were more than willing to accommodate the placements and they all do things slightly differently, according to the needs of those living in their areas, so the Hong Kong team will be able to discuss, and learn from, those differences."

In a related project, Dr Graham Congdon, Associate Dean for Research, Enterprise and External Relations in the Faculty of Health, is currently developing a collaborative partnership with the Hong Kong Health Authority to provide postgraduate programmes for Hong Kong healthcare staff.

Graham added: "This is an exciting development for the University and it is great experience for us all to have staff from Hong Kong studying on the Ormskirk campus. Working with international students provides excellent professional development opportunities for Faculty staff."