Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust

Director of Medical Education

Dr Mehool Patel

Clinical Tutor

Dr John Stroobant

Foundation Training Programme Director(s)

Dr Mehool Patel
Dr John Stroobant

Careers Tutor(s)

Dr Mehool Patel

Medical Education Manager

Mrs Anne Ellis

Medical Staffing Manager

Mrs Anne Ellis

Foundation Programme Administrator(s)

Annette Cooke
Katie Cleary
Laura Smith

Postgraduate Centre

The Department of Postgraduate Medical Education has overall responsibility for ensuring the provision of education and training for postgraduate doctors.  The Trust continues to meet the educational standards as prescribed by the PMETB & London Deanery. We have made a major commitment to the development of Research and Education.  The Trust has a Director of Education and an Education Team, which supports the learning, needs of all staff. 
The Trust Staffing and Medical Education team have responsibility for providing high quality support to medical education, trust staffing and strategic medical staffing planning.  We aim to provide a consistent, reliable, thorough and high quality administrative staffing function to all staff within the Trust.
We are responsible for ensuring a very high quality provision of all front line services.   We aim to offer high quality, well regarded postgraduate medical education and our posts have continued to attract high calibre junior staff. 
On-going medical education activities have included comprehensive induction, career counselling, Deanery and College supported educational supervision and assessment provision of an ‘information supported’ learning environment.
The Foundation Programme at Lewisham has an excellent reputation and we continue to attract high calibre trainees at F1 and F2 levels. The innovative education week for F2 trainees once again registered over 95% attendance and this model is being copied by other Trusts.
We have on site Clinical Skills laboratory and Resuscitation Training facilities which is housed in our state of the art new Simulation Suite

Accommodation

There is no on-site accommodation.

Social activities

Outside of work there is a lively and vibrant social network including a Christmas and Summer Ball organised by F1 Mess President. Five a side football and many other social events.

Doctors' mess

The Drs mess is allocated close to the Staff Restaurant.  It has a wide-screen television with access to Sky, comfortable sofas and 4 wall mounted computers.  Tea and coffee facilities are all provided.

Library facilities

There is a multidisciplinary library, a Computer Assisted Learning Room and Graphics/Desktop Publishing capacity. The Trust was successful in attracting £2 million portfolio research funding per year from the NHS R&D budget in 1998 and has maintained this funding level. The Trust has an R&D Unit with management support; this is jointly led by the Trust R&D Director (Dr Gabrielle Kingsley) and the Director of Knowledge Management (Mrs Joy Ellery).  Research opportunities (in any of the 21 programme areas included in the SE London Sector R&D Programme) are available to all interested and appropriately trained staff. Annual Research Days and the Annual Academic Report further promote the Academic activities of the Trust.
The Robin Stott Library  
Monday – Friday 9am  – 5.00pm
Access to Full Electronic journals  
Access to bibliographic database  MEDLINE, AMED,HMIC etc
Our Librarians will support your information needs providing training on searching & full-text journals and support you with literature searches
Athens passwords - access to Databases and full text journals and books - Inter-Library Loans - access to range of other libraries to supplement our stock including British Library.

IT facilities

We offer plenty of IT facilities in the hospital. The Learning Resource Centre holds 16 computers with internet access. Also there are allocated rooms for each specialty, which provide great IT facilities only accessible to doctors.

Other facilities (Recreational or otherwise)

On site bar – The Lewi Club holds many social events throughout the year.  Mess parties are often held here its open Monday to Friday 10am to 11pm where the drinks are inexpensive.  Also there is Ravensbourne Restaurant on site which serves excellent hot food at reasonable prices.
Lockers available to all juniors.  Allocated bike storage area within the trust.  We also have an onsite Nursery.

Local amenities/attractions

Located 12 minutes train ride from London Bridge.
Plenty of local attractions walking distance to/from Lewisham DLR.
Blackheath Village and Greenwich Park are tourist areas.

Transport links

Bus routes to Lewisham High Street from: Brixton P4, Canada Water 199, Deptford 47, West Croydon/Blackheath 54, Grove Park Cemetery 284, Croydon Via Sydenham 75, Crystal Palace/ Plumstead 122, Peckham/Grove Park 136, Victoria 185, Orpington via Bromley 208, Camberwell 484.
Trains run from Charing Cross and London Bridge to Ladywell Station on the Hayes line. This is then a 5 minute walk to the hospital and is sign posted from the park. Victoria, Cannon Street, Charing Cross and London Bridge trains run to Lewisham station through to all areas of Kent. This is 10 minute walk to the hospital or a short bus ride.

Parking arrangements

Limited parking

Accolades/achievements of the trust

The pastoral support provided to Foundation trainees within the postgraduate department is among the best in London. The co-location of the medical staffing department and the postgraduate department allows an excellent level of communication and co-operation between the two departments.  This means that rota co-ordination with teaching and training opportunities is easier than it might otherwise be. The innovative week-long foundation teaching programme for Fy2 has consistently received excellent feedback. The hospital at night team was recently awarded excellent ratings by NHS London.

Any additional information

Lewisham Health Care NHS Trust is a very busy inner-city Acute District General Hospital. It is a university teaching hospital, and has recently merged to become one of the first trusts in the country to have both acute and community services under one trust. This merger will provide a unique opportunity of introducing innovative training opportunities in future, whereby community placements/rotations will be possible. This opportunity will be in line with the current direction of travel of health services within the NHS. Undergraduates from the Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine (GKT) are regularly assigned to Lewisham for part of their training. There are approximately 500 beds including a well-equipped 12-bedded ITU/HDU, a 5 bedded Cardiac Care Unit and a 46 bed Medical Admissions Unit with its own monitored beds. The hospital has 8 main operating theatres, a day surgery unit. In November 2006 a new 6-storey state of the art medical and surgical ward area opened (Riverside Building) which includes 4 of the Trust’s Theatres as part of the Riverside Treatment Centre (RTC). The RTC has enabled the Trust to physically separate Elective and Emergency Surgery.
The Radiology Department offers a full range of services including MRI, CT, Interventional Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Comprehensive Pathology services are available on site with consultants in each specialty.

Induction/shadowing arrangements

Shadowing/ Induction takes place in the prior to commencement of employment.

Educational and clinical supervision

In accordance with deanery recommendation, there is a single ES for the whole year for each trainee, with CS for each post.

Teaching programme

The teaching programme covers the Foundation Curriculum.

Tasters

The Career Taster Week gives you a week to experience a different specialty and hospital.

Simulation

We have a state of the art clinical simulation centre which is set up to replicate an acute care NHS environment, providing realistic clinical facilities for all healthcare professionals.
This multi-professional training facility comprises a mock theatre area, a ward area, and a maternity suite, and is home to a large family of sophisticated, life-size medical manikins that can mimic the acutely ill adult and child. They can talk, breathe, bleed, blink and cry and even give birth!
The centre provides training for a wide range of healthcare professionals studying our programmes.
Our showcase of patient simulators includes adults, pregnant women, children and babies, providing students with an authentic clinical experience.
Every room in the centre is equipped with state of the art audiovisual recording equipment and clinical scenarios which can be recorded for debriefing and to give our candidates an opportunity to reflect on their performance.

Foundation doctor forums

Lewisham has already implemented foundation doctor forums to discuss issues of training and service provision over the last five years. The foundation doctor representative also attends the foundation faculty meetings three times a year to discuss these issues.

Any additional information

The trust has recently merged to become one of the first trusts in the country to have both acute and community services under one trust. This merger will provide a unique opportunity of introducing innovative training opportunities in future, whereby community placements/ rotations will be possible.