Case Study -
Manikins for Ambulance Service

Earlier this year Will Bellamy, Head of the Isle of Man Ambulance Service [IMAS], received the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ from Manx Care for the work that the service has done in training up their Emergency Care Assistants on the island.

Will said at the time: ‘We are currently looking at what else we can do to offer training and development opportunities locally, as this is something we’re very passionate about.’

Now, the Trust has stepped in to help Will take the ambulance service to the next level with the purchase of four baby and child size manikins – a ten year old child, a five year old child, a three year old toddler and a new born baby – and video laryngoscopes.

The manikins will be used to provide training for ambulance staff in caring for children that are critically unwell. This includes practising intubation, an advanced airway procedure that requires monthly training and which can now be facilitated using the manikins the Trust has funded, alongside regular opportunities for staff to work alongside the anaesthetists at Noble’s Hospital.

Training in the procedure will be further facilitated by the use of video laryngoscopes funded by the Trust which use a video screen to give clear visualisation when the scope is inserted into the airway.

‘Intubation is a crucial skill in airway management. The video laryngoscopes will give us that next step up in visualising the airway,’ says Will.

The Isle of Man Ambulance Service regularly can for unwell children but only the most critically unwell need the procedures that the Trust-funded manikins will be used to train for.

Will says: ‘It’s a rare event but our staff need to be working to the absolute best of their abilities.’

One of the scenarios that can be recreated with astonishing realism is drowning. One of the manikins that the Trust has funded can simulate for foaming that can be seen when ambulance staff breathe for a patient who has drowned.

Other scenarios ambulance staff will encounter include newborn resuscitation and life support, and seriously ill toddlers and older children.

Will says: ‘If you’ve got a child that is presenting with meningococcal septicaemia, we’ve got all the tools to deal with it and now we can simulate that in training.

‘We’re really grateful to the Henry Bloom Noble Healthcare Trust because this equipment is not cheap, it’s £40,000’s worth of investment that they have given us.’

‘Our staff want to be the best they can be and this just helps us to deliver that.’