CHFT Weekly was there to record live from the Trust's first  organ donation training event in the simulation suite at HRI with actresses playing grieving family members.

 Hear from Caren Reid, Tim Jackson, Jayne Greenhalgh and the actresses here.... click here.

Bella Hamblin an actress who once played a  nurse caring for  Jack Duckworth (actor Bill Tarmey) after a heart attack on Coronation Street was "the mum" for the day.

On the day she was a mum whose 25-year-old son had been left brain dead after a devastating haemorrhage.The scenario was devised by our specialist Organ Donation (OD) team at CHFT to train colleagues in the process of providing support to families and learning about the clinical processes at such difficult times.

Fellow actress Natalie Wilson played the deceased young man's sister. Natalie said: "Taking part was really interesting. To see how the doctors and nurses interacted and communicated with the family members with  such respect and such professionalism, I found was really reassuring to see."

The day was staged by our clinical lead for OD, Tim Jackson. He said: " Having actors in brought the emotional side to the fore and was really powerful."

Caren Reid, from medical education, said the suite was proving increasingly popular with many teams for simulation training. It was recently booked out for training for YAS. She thanked Richard Hill in IT for his support in helping to make it work.

As this was the pilot course, our main aim was to invite candidates who could give us vital feedback on the course in order to develop it, so they were all specifically picked. Most were senior, experienced staff from their departments, almost all have a background in either teaching and simulation or were organ donation link-practitioners.

We intend to roll the course out and will open it up to ED, ICU, anaesthetics and theatres to suggest staff who would be able to benefit from this course and spread the key messages to their colleagues. It’ll probably be aimed at all grades of nurses and doctors to start with, until we get enough people through the course. There are 10 per course and 2 courses per year. Eventually we intend to expand to other nearby organisations who express an interest in joining us on our journey.