New £4.8 million nursing and health lab facilities have been officially opened at the University of Wolverhampton’s Walsall Campus.
The state-of-the-art facilities include innovative teaching rooms to provide for our students learning experiences that will help them to develop a wide range of practice skills. This will help students to become highly skilled and will also cater for an increase in students on courses such as Nursing, Midwifery, Physiotherapy and Paramedic Science.
The facilities in the Sister Dora Building were opened by two current students, Adult Nursing student Fuzia Bi and Paramedic Science student Will Matthews, along with Vice-Chancellor Professor Geoff Layer.
Professor Lisa Bayliss-Pratt, former Health Education England’s Chief Nurse and a previous student and staff member of the University, was the keynote speaker at the event.
The development includes a two-storey extension to existing facilities in the Institute of Health.
Guests including hospital trust partners were given a tour of the building, which now houses a series of multi-disciplinary lab spaces created for a range of settings and a collaboration area.
In order to support students to learn skills in caring for patients, clients and families in every possible setting, the skills labs and simulation facilities include several mock hospital ward rooms, mock bedsit and terraced house. Students will be using the latest technology including a computerised anatomic model which allows student to ‘see inside’ the human body.
The facilities enable students to practice skills in a safe environment with a fully enabled Panopto facility – which allows sessions to be filmed and played back. This can give a patient’s eye-view and enables students to review their own progress.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Geoff Layer said: “The skills gap is healthcare is well known and our investment in healthcare facilities across our campuses is part of our commitment to meeting this need. There is a shortage of nurses and other healthcare workers in the UK and we are working closely with the hospital trusts in our region to identify their needs and how we can grow our provision to meet demand. As a University we are committed to providing excellent teaching environments for students to learn, develop and grow and these new facilities at our Walsall Campus will ensure we continue to provide the very best education for the next generation of health professionals.”
Dr Alex Hopkins, Dean of the Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing, said: “Our new health labs at the Walsall Campus have been designed with the needs of our students and the professions they will enter right at the heart of our plans. This will make a huge difference to the clinical experience our students gain while they are training with us.
“Our courses are all professionally accredited and we work closely with healthcare providers to provide our students with the right tools and the right environment for a challenging and rewarding career in the sector.”
The £4.8m project was designed by architects Broadway Malyan and Speller Metcalfe was the main build contractor with Gleeds as project managers.
Bill Cave, operations director at Speller Metcalfe, said: “We are delighted to see the successful completion of the Sister Dora skills and simulation suite. This has been down to the collaborative approach of the project team, resulting in state-of-the-art facilities that will provide students with the opportunity to learn new skills using the most modern healthcare techniques.”