CHD Competency Framework – ACS competency-based training programme with the Critical Care Skills Institute, Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority

The Critical Care Skills Institute used the CHD Competency Framework to support the development of a new multi-professional programme for CHD practitioners. This was achieved through close partnership working with the Skills for Health CHD Competency Framework project team

The purpose of the Critical Care Skills Institute (CCSI) is to develop the clinical skills of healthcare practitioners throughout Greater Manchester. It was born out of a need within Greater Manchester to increase critical care provision. The centre includes a 40-seat lecture theatre and 2 clinical skill labs. It is a focal point for critical care skills training within Manchester, with over 500 learners currently enrolled on the programme.

The CCSI currently runs the Greater Manchester Multi-professional Critical Care Programme (GMMCCP). This programme uses a competency-based approach to the learning and development of healthcare practitioners.

The CCSI has also been working in partnership with the Greater Manchester Cardiac Network to develop a similar programme for Coronary Heart Disease in Greater Manchester. As part of this work, there was a need to develop draft competencies covering Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). This was where there was an opportunity to tie in with the work of Skills for Health to further develop the CHD Competency Framework.

The work that CCSI carried out aimed to:

• produce ACS competences for use as part of a flexible multi-professional competency-based training programme aligned to service needs
  create a shared ACS education programme, utilising a variety of learning methods, delivered at a central training centre
  create an evidence-based training programme and align it to the CHD NSF to benchmark minimum standards across Greater Manchester
  develop sufficient competent CHD healthcare professionals throughout Greater Manchester
  trial partnership working with the Skills for Health CHD Competency Framework team

How we helped

The CCSI Steering Group met in June and July 2004 to draft competences across ACS. During this time the Steering Group was also introduced to the work that Skills for Health were doing on the CHD Competence Framework, which includes competencies for ACS. Some differences in approach were identified, particularly around the inclusion of assessment recording information in the CCSI model.

It was agreed that the Skills for Health Competences could be reformatted into a similar approach to allow CCSI more fully to incorporate the Skills for Health competencies into their development work.

To make the process manageable, the focus of this joint development work was on the following two areas:

• administering drug treatments for individuals experiencing ACS
  examining and assessing individuals with suspected CHD

The Skills for Health competencies were reformatted to include the CCSI assessment approach, and to place the knowledge and understanding ‘upfront’. These draft competencies were then presented alongside other CCSI competences at a practitioner workshop in July 2004. Following this event the draft competencies were further developed by the clinical manager and sent out to the group for approval.

The results

The results of this work will be a competence-based training and development programme for CHD practitioners which is founded upon the relevant National Workforce Competence Framework. This demonstrates the value and application of the CHD Competence Framework to underpin the training and development of practitioners working in this area.

The partnership approach enabled our team to find ways of improving the content of the draft competencies based on feedback from CCSI and the practitioners that they are working with. It also enabled CCSI to learn more about the work of Skills for Health and the approaches it takes in developing and describing competences within the health sector.