Pictured from the left: Rosie Courtney, senior workforce specialist for simulation and patient safety, NHS England (south east), Justine Clements, business development manager at the University of Winchester’s Faculty of Health and Wellbeing and Katherine Cook.

Physiotherapist Katherine Cook has praised the impact that a telehealth skills package has had on students following nursing, physiotherapy and other allied health professional (AHP) degree courses at the University of Winchester.

Dr Cook helped to develop the telehealth skills package in 2022, which received financial backing from Health Education England (now NHS England) as part of an expansion of simulation training. The multi-professional, virtual learning telehealth programme is used flexibly by various AHP and nursing student year groups.  

Dr Cook joined two colleagues on the stage at last month’s ASPiH (Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare) conference in Edinburgh, where their abstract was named as one of three ‘best abstracts’ submitted to the three-day event.

‘Amazing opportunity’

Dr Cook also gave a well-received presentation on the telehealth package to the virtual NET Conference 2024: organised by Networking and Innovation in Healthcare Education on 11 December. 

Presenting Winchester’s submission on stage at a session at the ASPiH conference that was devoted to the best telehealth abstracts, Dr Cook said: ‘It has been an amazing opportunity to be involved in dynamic team and project. It has had a really positive impact on an inter-professional group of healthcare students.’ 

In our digital age in which remote consultations are becoming more common, ‘webside manner’ is just as important as bedside manner for healthcare professionals [Katherine Cook]

From ‘bedside’ to ‘webside’

The telehealth package offers a series of simulated telehealth consultations in which students work in multidisciplinary groups to achieve tasks such as conducting a remote or virtual clinical assessment but with actors as patients. In our digital age in which remote consultations are becoming more common, ‘webside manner’ is just as important as bedside manner for healthcare professionals.’  

Dr Cook said the telehealth package using simulation had boosted Winchester students’ knowledge and confidence in a safe and supportive way. ‘The positive shift in attitudes to telehealth and students’ “webside” manners are likely to benefit healthcare users as learners go out into practice.

She added: ‘We are undertaking further research into the impact of simulation within our healthcare courses.’ 

For information on next year’s ASPiH (Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare) conference – due to be held in Bournemouth from 11 to 13 November – click 

To find our more about the NET Conference 2024, click