West to east: reflection on partnership working in Vietnam

Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) has been working in partnership with the Newborns Vietnam (NBV) Charity to support education and skills based training for neonatal nurses in Vietnam. The primary objective of NBV is to support the Da Nang Hospital for Women and Children (DHWC) to become a regional centre of excellence in the care of sick new borns. In 2012 CCCU was commissioned to provide an educational needs assessment of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at DHWC. This led to the development of an 18-month Neonatal Nursing Course. To date, this has upskilled 27 neonatal nurses to enable specialist neonatal care to be delivered more effectively. Following the success of the Neonatal Nursing Course, it was recognised by NBV that further education and skills training was required. This was to ensure specialist neonatal knowledge and skills were cascaded in order to maintain a sustainable future workforce. As a result, in 2015, CCCU was commissioned to deliver a locally and contextually appropriate Practice Educator Course. The aim of the course was to develop a number of the neonatal nurses to become Practice Educators. There were 10 neonatal nurses selected to undertake the course, including 2 from the National Paediatric Hospital in Hanoi. In addition, 4 university lecturers from the Da Nang Technical University of Medicine and Pharmacy. The success of both the Neonatal and Practice Educator Courses has led to continued engagement with NBV and another neonatal course has been commissioned for 2017. The presentation will provide an overview of the impact of the partnership on the development of a sustainable neonatal workforce in Vietnam.