Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching NHS Trust (Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals) provides healthcare in hospital and in the community to 260,000 people across Southport, Formby and West Lancashire.
Both hospitals provide acute care at Southport and Formby District General Hospital and Ormskirk and District General Hospital. The services provided, include adult and children’s accident and emergency services, intensive care and a range of medical and surgical specialities, from trauma and orthopaedics to care of the elderly. Women’s and children’s services, including maternity and paediatrics, are provided at Ormskirk Hospital.
Located at Southport and Formby District General Hospital is the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre which provides specialist care for spinal patients from across the North West, North Wales and the Isle of Man. The Trust also provides Sexual Health services across the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton.
Being a trust which has a core focus on teaching and supporting learners, the Trust is committed to developing and training medical students and doctors to meet the challenges of changing health care and maintaining high professional standards - while ensuring service continuity.
We are kind, we are open, we are inclusive.
Placement opportunities
- Excellent teaching programmes across all specialties.
- Weekly bedside teaching.
- Shadowing of clinical and medical staff.
- Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre.
- Teaching within the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre.
- Foundation Year bedside teaching programme, including revision sessions.
- Highly commended palliative care placement (including communication skills) at Queenscourt Hospice, situated next door to Southport Hospital.
Clinical skills provision
The Trust has 7 Clinical Learning and Skills rooms split between Southport and Ormskirk. Each room can be configured individually to your bespoke requirements. We have a wide range of training equipment including part task trainers are available for clinical skills teaching and practice, they are mapped to each student cohorts learning requirements. Example of this is Obstetrics and Gynaecology have bespoke part task trainers for the clinical skills in those areas.
Sessions are facilitated by the Clinical Skills team as well as expert Senior Clinicians. Group sizes are purposely kept small for Clinical Skills and Simulation teaching, to ensure all students are given the time to exercise hands-on practical skills under close expert supervision. The Clinical Practice Zones are also available for students to proactively practice their clinical skills during their placements in a safe learner focus environment.
The Southport site has a Simulation Suite, housing high-fidelity patient simulators of all ages ranges and video debrief equipment to aid our provision of Simulation Based Education. Ormskirk has its own high-fidelity obstetric patient simulator used in the education of the obstetric team
In addition to the high-fidelity patient simulation, we have a growing family of realistic looking patient simulators to aid the learning of our medical students learning, making the learning environment as immersive as possible with rooms that mirror a range of clinical areas.
What's unique?
- Easy access to public transport for Liverpool and Manchester.
- Small and friendly.
- Strong MDT environment in the trust.
- 1:1 ratio of consultant to student supervision.
- WhatsApp Speciality groups – a useful platform for students to communicate with each other, clinicians, and our undergraduate team.
- Excellent MDT teaching programme provided across all specialties.
- Small teaching groups.
- High number of SAS doctors included in the delivery of teaching programmes.
- Excellent pastoral support for students.
- Close to the beach and 2nd longest Pier in the UK.
Student testimonials
“A friendly and welcoming Trust!”
“Great teaching provided by consultants; the weekly consultant bedside teaching in particular is fantastic!”
“It’s nice being greeted in the corridors and wards by everyone and the staff are keen to find out how we are getting on.”
“Small group teaching that allowed us, time to practice ourselves while getting used to the equipment”
“Good comprehensive teaching with friendly and helpful MDT Clinicians supporting me through my placements”
Other information
All students have their own dedicated common room, classroom, and two on-call rooms on site. This is situated right next door to the Clinical Education Centre. The trust provides 24-hour access to our libraries.
Hospital facilities include canteen (at both sites), and coffee shop (at Southport Hospital). 10 minutes’ walk to local amenities, including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and McDonalds. As well as open green spaces to connect with nature during breaks.