Teaching and learning clinical skills, Part 1--Development of a multidisciplinary skills centre

A critical review of current nursing, midwifery and medical education programmes in the context of a changing health service, had led staff at the nursing and medical colleges at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London to conclude that radical approaches to teaching and learning are needed. This is particularly the case for the teaching and assessment of competence in clinical skills. Increased emphasis on community care, day care and outpatient teaching with the concomitant increase in dependency and throughput of inpatients, makes it increasingly difficult for students to observe and practice communication and clinical skills. To meet this major challenge, a joint initiative between the College of Nursing & Midwifery, the Medical College and the St Bartholomew's NHS Group to develop a clinical skills learning facility has been established. The Skills Centre will provide a focus for the learning and assessment of clinical and communication skills in a multidisciplinary environment. In a series of two papers the aims and development of the joint initiative will be explored together with four key outcomes, a Clinical Skills Matrix, a staged approach to skills teaching, a schedule for teaching and assessing clinical skills and the Integrated Skills Teaching Model.