Background Historically the delivery of an education programme for inpatient nursing staff has been challenging. Particular challenges are:

1. Resourcing an education programme with leadership and teachers

2. Facilitating teaching given the clinical demands in a busy inpatient unit.

We adopted a new multi-disciplinary team joint approach with a doctor and nurse team, education team and nurse managers to run a teaching programme.

Aims • To evaluate current learning practices and teaching interest

• To develop and run a teaching programme

• To evaluate teaching with a view to creating a sustainable programme which can function against the challenges of the inpatient unit.

Methods Staff surveys were used to review current learning practice and attitudes. The team designed and delivered a weekly programme trialled over two months with pre- and post-evaluation. Five sessions have happened to date with individual session feedback.

Results In pre-programme assessment 20 staff surveys demonstrated:

• Low attendance to formal training with most attending no sessions in the last month (no sessions=63.2%)

• All interested in attending teaching

• With 40% willing themselves to teach.

Individual session feedback demonstrates good attendance and all rated ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. We will additionally be presenting follow-up data at two months.

Conclusions Results demonstrate strong learning interest and some interest in teacher development. To date there is good attendance and highly positive feedback. We propose that central to its success is our team approach with dedicated nursing leadership, increasing the teaching profile, e.g., with certificates, and co-ordinators managing staff allocation between teaching and clinical duties. Lessons learnt are vitally important to help other hospices adopt successful strategies to run teaching programmes when faced with a demanding clinical environment. We will now work towards running a sustainable programme and to develop staff as teachers and learning leaders themselves.