“Asked to See Patient” (ATSP)—Improving Patient Safety and Confidence in Junior Doctors

Abstract

Health Education North West, Manchester, UK "Asked to See Patient" (ATSP) is a peer-delivered teaching programme delivered to new Foundation Year One (FY1) doctors in North West England prior to the August change over period. The ATSP teaching is based on a booklet containing guidance on the management of common clinical scenarios encountered during out of hours shifts "on-call", to aid the transition from medical student to newly qualified doctor. In June every year, an ATSP "Teach the Teachers" course is delivered by the ATSP chairs. This is a one-day course delivered to existing FY1 doctors from all of the National Health Service (NHS) trusts in North West England. ATSP is subsequently delivered by the existing FY1 doctors locally at each trust in small groups. Role-play and PowerPoint presentations are used to deliver these sessions and ATSP booklets are handed out at the end. New FY1 doctors who attended the ATSP programme were then surveyed one month after starting work to assess the value of the ATSP course/booklet during on-call shifts. This electronic survey contained qualitative and quantitative assessments and these data were then collated and analysed using both statistical and thematic analysis. There were 548 FY1 doctors attended the ATSP course at their hospitals. Of the 141 who responded to the questionnaire, 58% utilised ATSP booklets during on-calls, 59% reported improvements in prioritisation of on-call jobs, and 76% felt that they had become a safer clinician as a result of ATSP. The ATSP programme has shown to aid the transition from medical student to confident newly qualified FY1 doctor, who can initiate assessment, investigation, and management of patients prior to obtaining senior help.

Improving the effectiveness of a paediatric handbook for new house officers

“…This behaviour was similar to other educational resources designed to help junior doctors during on call duty. 10 Therefore, the study team used the frequency of usage to assess the effectiveness of the new handbook and the target of 2–3 times a week was to match the maximum number of on call duties per week. In KKH, four HOs per day are rostered for on call duties, and therefore we aimed for an increment of 25% in the usage of the handbook – the equivalent of one more HO using the handbook while on call.…”