Specialists ensure a high standard of training for point-of-care testing in the West Midlands

In Wolverhampton, the trust works in partnership with Roche specialists to provide training for staff using the Roche Accu-Chek Inform II network-connected blood glucose meters, which are located in 69 different areas/wards at New Cross Hospital, the trust’s main hospital in Wolverhampton, as well as in two remote renal units and other hospital extended units. The service is also used for training hospital staff on Accu-Chek, cobas b 221 blood gas analysers, and on the Urisys 1100 urine test strip analysers. The equipment is used by a wide range of health professionals, including clinical nursing staff of all grades, healthcare assistants and phlebotomists.

Wolverhampton Wonders
Liz Laverick, POCT manager at The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, comments: “The Roche Training Specialist Service ensures that we have a consistent and high standard of training for our POCT equipment. For example, for Accu-Chek Inform II meters we have a regular training slot as part of the trust induction and we hold link nurse trainer update days to ensure that cascade training is also of a high standard.

“The training credits system that we have with Roche allows us to arrange and plan our training,” Liz continues. “The Roche training specialist has worked closely with us, as an extension to our own team, to help develop our training programme towards compliance with CPA POCT standards. We have consistent, high-quality training that covers all aspects of the process – from sample taking and patient safety to testing and result actions – and the system provides us with records that demonstrate our staff have been trained to this standard.