Introduction:

MELISSA (Mobile Educational Learning, Improving Simulation and Safety Activities) is a double decker bus designed to deliver healthcare education and training across the Northeast and North Cumbria [1]. The North East of England is one of the largest geographical areas in terms of a NHS training region. The training region also includes North Cumbria, where NHS workers may face 80-mile (129km) trips to attend training at a main hospital site with clinical education and simulation facilities. The ambition of this innovative project is to deliver clinical training, service delivery or public information campaigns to remote and rural areas. The events supported involve the public, our patients and all members of the NHS workforce.

Methods:

The MELISSA team works in partnership with organisations to support work training and education across all aspects of healthcare. MELISSA can be booked by completion of an event form via the website. The team meet with each partner to discuss the proposed event and how this aligns to either Faculty of Patient Safety objectives, meets a training curriculum need or an NHS strategy [2]. A full-service evaluation is currently being undertaking with an academic partner utilising a ripple effects methodology.

Results:

Since 2020, MELISSA has facilitated 281 events with 23867 delegates on board, 23 clinical training events for example emergency medicine regional teaching and foundation doctors’ teaching/ wellbeing days, facilitated over 500 nursing & midwifery council competence signs offs in rural district hospitals and 41 healthcare careers sessions. MELISSA has worked with Middleborough United Football Club to deliver BLS and AED awareness sessions on match days to football fans and their families. MELISSA has also participated in 118 public awareness sessions and 111 clinical delivery sessions including educational student lead clinics. Recent feedback based on 54 responses from the facilitators who have used the service, utilising a Likert scale of 1-7 (1- very poor, 7 exceptional) showed very positive results with averages greater than 6 in most areas.

Discussion:

MELISSA is a popular resource in the North East and North Cumbria. The service has been used to support postgraduate training in the region for centres that are currently struggling with capacity challenges to accommodate their training demands. Due to increasing requests for the use of MELISSA, The Faculty of Patient Safety launched a second vehicle, MELISSA 2, in June 2023 which provides the fleet with greener credentials, more resilience and more sustainability to the service.

Ethics statement:

Authors confirm that all relevant ethical standards for research conduct and dissemination have been met. The submitting author confirms that relevant ethical approval was granted, if applicable.

References

1. MELISSA | The NHS Training and Simulation Bus [Internet]. NE Learning Trust. Available from: https://www.melissabus.co.uk/.

2. Faculty of Patient Safety | Home | North East Simulation Network [Internet]. North East Sim. [cited 2024 Apr 27]. Available from: https://www.northeastsimulation.co.uk/about/faculty-of-patient-safety.