Academic Department of Critical Care

Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, UK

Doctors - a few reasons to train in Portsmouth

Dr Matthew Williams





CQC – outstanding rating for the department

A* deanery award for training for 4 consecutive years

Noted culture of patient safety – e.g. daily safety briefs, development of a raft of SOPs/guidelines

GMC have used our department’s induction programme as an example of exemplary practice

Graded responsibility is a culture that the Consultant group foster: “acting up weeks” for advanced ICM trainees; acute medical registrars offered chance to act as ICM registrar

All trainees allocated a Consultant supervisor; trainee group regularly discussed at Consultants meeting to ensure issues triangulated and trainees supported appropriately. Lines of responsibility clear for trainees and trainers to escalate issues or need for support

Good broad case mix. Around 1500 patient admissions a year

State of the Art Facilities. New build in 2009

IT access very easily available throughout the department

Consultant led morning handovers, with presence often at registrar led night time handover – always takes place between shifts.

Rotas actively managed (by Consultants) to ensure educational balance to service, especially during a recent very difficult time – EWTR compliant

PINCER course – full course yet again in March with excellent feedback

IT lead (Dr Mathieu) has led the revamp of Wessex ICS website, set up a Portsmouth ICU website and the lead Consultant for the excellent FOAMed resource of The Bottom Line

Appointment of the first SPARC-ICM fellow (joint post over 1 year with UHS); Dr Adeniji is the lead ICM consultant to support this region wide collaborative trainee group

Dr Williams continues to lead the Wessex regional registrar training days, which are well attended and receives continued commendable feedback

3 of 5 Wessex ICM consultants at the National ICM recruitment process were from Portsmouth

2 Consultants are now FICE accredited trainers – the first unit in Wessex to be able to provide on-site in-training ECHO training for ICM trainees

Weekly departmental teaching programme – incorporates monthly M&M, bimonthly governance meetings (inc critical incident review) and regular journal clubs

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