FIVE colleagues in the cardiology team at Musgrove Park Hospital have cause for celebration after successfully gaining an important echocardiography qualification.
The cardiology departments at Musgrove Park and Yeovil hospitals are regulated by the British Society of Echocardiography – also known as BSE – which has a set of specific requirements for accreditation.
Within the trust, any colleague who carries out an independent echocardiogram on a patient, followed by a clinical report, must have completed the BSE Level two trans-thoracic accreditation.
Recruitment into this area of healthcare is difficult across the country, so having an additional three colleagues who have gained their theory component of the accreditation is a major boost to cardiology care in Somerset.
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Additionally, two of the five who already have their adult accreditation have passed their congenital heart disease exams.
Emily King, a clinical scientist and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust’s cardiac physiology lead for education and training, welcomes the news and says she’s proud of the outstanding effort made by her cardiology colleagues.
“It’s well known that there’s currently a massive national shortage in echocardiographers, and it’s so tough that we even struggle to recruit competent echocardiographers through locum or temporary agencies,” she says.
“The difficulties in recruitment mainly come about because of the way modernising scientific careers have gone over the last 20 years, as there are lots of different routes to become an echocardiographer, and there are simply not enough people are being trained nationally.
“This has meant we’ve needed to be creative in the way we both recruit colleagues and develop those already within the department.
“We entered five of our colleagues in for the exam, with three of them passing their standard accreditation, and two going that step further to complete a further accreditation in congenital echo.
“This extra qualification means that those two colleagues will be accredited to work in paediatrics – a service that currently does not have anyone accredited in congenital heart disease, so the complicated pathologies are scanned by the paediatric cardiologist, or they are scanned at Bristol.
“Both Nelisa Sagrado and Amy Szewiel, who’ve both just passed the exam, are now spending some time at the Bristol Children’s Hospital to get that important peer support, so they can come back here to scan children in Somerset who have a suspected heart condition – it’s fantastic news
The BSE accreditation process is split into two sections, which include sitting a theory exam and a practical component which involves submitting a 250 case logbook to demonstrate reporting competence, an exam of practical competence, and five video cases of both images acquired and reports for specific pathologies. They have to successfully complete all elements to become accredited.
Emily continues: “It’s a long two year process from start to finish and most of our colleagues are well on their way to collecting the majority of their log book entries
“As long as we’re able to keep these colleagues here at the trust, we’re training and retaining, which is really important for the growth and development of the service in Somerset.”