An innovative education centre which will train Yorkshire’s future doctors, nurses and dentists has been officially opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

The opening was performed by Professor Sir Christopher Edwards, chairman of NHS Medical Education England, who also toured the £730,000 training facilities.

The Simulation Centre and Technical Skills Laboratory complement the existing suite of training rooms and state-of-the-art Sovereign Lecture Theatre, helping to put Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at the cutting edge of professional healthcare.

The Technical Skills Laboratory, which cost £485,000, provides high-tech facilities for the teaching of advanced surgical techniques across a range of medical specialities.

The facility has already been used to host inter-collegiate ENT examinations and has received high praise from users. A smaller seminar room equipped with six dental head simulators will train dentists and related-staff.

The Simulation Centre, built at a cost of more than £245,000, consists of several simulated clinical environments. These include a four-bedded ward complete with hoist, a multi-purpose room which can replicate a patient’s home, a clinician’s consulting room, a discussion room and a modern operating theatre plus resuscitation area where students and teachers can recreate real-life medical scenarios.

Training performances in the theatre can be viewed from an adjacent seminar room via one-way viewing glass. All areas of the Simulation Centre are equipped with audio-visual digital recording equipment to allow various realistic training scenarios to be captured on Big Brother-style cameras for feedback purposes which, along with new patient simulators (mannequins), are controlled via the on-site control room.

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