445 Improving Confidence of General Surgical SHO in Carrying Out Primary Surveys During Trauma Calls, at a Busy District General Hospital

Aim General surgery Senior House officers (SHOs) are expected to carry out primary surveys at district general hospitals, although many have not received adequate training to follow the gold-standard Advanced Trauma Life Support guidelines. This project aimed to assess and improve general surgery SHOs ability to undertake primary surveys at trauma calls. Method At baseline a questionnaire was distributed to all departmental general surgical SHOs, evaluating how many had attended ATLS, if they were running primary surveys and determining their perceived confidence in doing so (Likert scale out of 10). For the first intervention, we conducted lecture based primary survey teaching sessions. For the second intervention we conducted high fidelity simulation sessions for common scenarios Results At baseline we found that just 33% of SHOs carrying out primary surveys had completed ATLS. The perceived confidence average was only 56%. Indeed, roughly a third of SHOs felt they were confident in carrying out primary surveys – all of whom had already completed ATLS. The main limitation of confidence was reported to be being safe and efficient. After the first intervention, average perceived confidence rose to 70%. After the second interventions simulations sessions, perceived confidence rose to 80%, and all SHOs taking part felt they were more confident in carrying out trauma calls. Conclusions This local teaching programme made up of lecture based and high-fidelity simulation teaching was effective at improving confidence of SHOs doing primary surveys. We propose trusts incorporate such programmes in induction especially for more junior SHOs, and those awaiting ATLS accreditation.