A group of education leaders from Thailand’s nursing colleges are visiting a university in Greater Manchester to help improve the South East Asian country’s nurse education system.

The 16 public health directors, representing regional colleges from across Thailand, are spending nine days at Salford University to develop ideas about improving teaching methods, boosting the quality of graduates and reforming primary healthcare.

“This visit is a great opportunity for us… to become a model which is adopted across one of South East Asia’s most important countries”

Members of the delegation will be given tours of teaching facilities such as Salford’s nursing simulation suite, which features rooms built to replicate hospital wards with high tech electronic manikins operated by technicians.

They will also be visiting the university’s MediaCityUK campus to find out about how digital media is being used to teach nurses and midwives.

In addition, they will visit Salford Royal Infirmary and Manchester Royal Infirmary, in order to learn about the Devo Manc agenda to integrate health and social care across Greater Manchester.

The directors are from the Praboromarachanok Institute, part of Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health, which runs public colleges across the country, along with nearly 100 hospitals and 10,000 health centres.

The visit was sparked after Margaret Rowe, dean of the university’s school of nursing and midwifery, met with senior members of the ministry during a recent visit to South East Asia.

Brian Boag, associate dean of the school, said: “This visit is a great opportunity for us not only to explain the innovative work we do here and pass on our expertise, but for Salford to become a model which is adopted across one of South East Asia’s most important countries.”

Dr Saengchom Tanomsingh, from the Thai institute, said: “We’re looking at how to develop our teaching and improve the quality of our students, and we’re hoping to improve our leadership development and the way we share knowledge and experience between different institutions.

“Also, it’s good to see the primary care system in the UK so when we get back we will have some suggestions about how we can reform our own system,” she added.

A similar delegation from Thailand’s government visited Northumbria University in 2014 to see how it used simulated patient mannequins to educate its nurses.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/ed...019419.article