2018 saw the vaccine training season start in March for ECG with it growing at a steady pace with the bulk of the training taking place over the summer months and now it is set to continue into October. 2017 saw 12500 pharmacists being trained through our online and face to face training, so far this year 8360 pharmacists have been trained by us.
The vaccine courses tend to run between three and five hours depending on content and covers how to set up for a vaccine session, how to safely carry out Intramuscular (IM) and Sub-cutaneous (SC) injections, safe sharps use and disposal along with Adult Basic Life Support (BLS) and the management of anaphylaxis including the correct use of Adrenaline Auto Injectors (AAI’s) and drawing up of adrenaline from a vial. In addition, at the clients request the courses can also include Paediatric Basic Life Support, reconstitution of vaccines, intranasal vaccines, Automated External Defibrillators (AED’s) and the most recent addition, how to test for strep A using throat swabs and a manual testing kit.
This has been my fourth year working for the company and during this time I have had the pleasure of personally delivering face to face vaccine courses to hundreds of pharmacists throughout the United Kingdom and I am proud to represent ECG and the high-quality clinical training which it delivers. I really enjoy training pharmacists who are all attentive and take the training very seriously. Like many of the ECG trainers I pride myself on making my training fun and memorable and I receive plenty of feedback to that effect. As a clinical trainer with a NHS and military background I find my ability to relate the training to my real-life experiences greatly aids in the learning process and that it installs confidence in the pharmacists so that they feel able to confidently deliver vaccines as well as being able to deal with any potential medical emergencies in which they may find themselves dealing with!
Written by Dave Bage, 17th September 2018
