The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs has announced a new partnership with the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in the United Kingdom, marking a significant step towards strengthening Saint Lucia’s emergency care system. As part of this collaboration, a specialist team from the NHS Trust visited the island to launch a pilot learning exchange program. The program serves as a platform for shared learning, allowing Saint Lucian healthcare professionals and UK-based experts to exchange knowledge, best practices, and practical approaches to delivering high-quality emergency care. The first phase of the visit included a structured training session tailored specifically for emergency room and urgent care nurses. Each day, nurses from various healthcare facilities participated in intensive clinical skills development.
According to the Senior Medical Officer for Urgent Care and Health Disaster Management, Dr. Delphina Vernor, strengthening triage and assessment procedures is key to reducing delays and increasing overall efficiency within emergency departments. “The training that we’re having now is focused on nurses and is giving them important skills on triaging, assessment of trauma, and management of patients who present especially to our urgent care facilities. So those are the patients who tend to be sicker and require more care. So persons who come in with stab wounds, cuts, persons who need to be recognized having symptoms of maybe a heart attack, a stroke, asthmatics and distress. So we want our nurses to be able to, when they first see the patients, because of course our nurses are usually the first point of contact for the patients. When they see the patients to be able to know how to triage them, use a skill that they can assess how quickly that person needs to be seen, they can alert the physician so that we can expedite care if we need to.”
Richard Holder, Head of Global Health Partnerships for the Nottingham University Hospitals, highlighted the broader vision for the collaboration, emphasizing the potential for sustained learning and mutual capacity building. “I’ve been to visit lots of different hospitals across the island, and what I’ve learned from that is that there’s lots of opportunity for us to share knowledge and expertise, and I think we have an aspiration for this to be a five-year partnership, and hopefully start on that journey of knowledge exchange and developing a good framework for us to think about how we, as a partnership, collaborate together, so it ranges from leadership and management to technical skills in clinical areas, to the more ancillary staff, so those supporting the hospital, so we see it as a whole range of opportunities for us to develop our partnership together.”
Registered Nurse Vitonius Alexander, who took part in the training, shared his experience and reflected on the positive influence the partnership has had on his professional development. “Well, I feel very elated with the partnership that the Ministry of Health and Nottingham University is offering. I find it’s a good initiative to help boost the level of care and support that the nurses and other medical officers and medical personnel will be implying to, basically, to better the community and better patient care.”
In addition to the training component, the visiting team from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust also conducted site visits to several healthcare facilities across the island. The insights gathered will guide the refinement of the learning exchange program and help shape future phases of collaboration.