When your role is saving children’s lives, it is critical that you have the best training; including training that is as close to real life as possible. An extraordinary gift from the Douglas Charitable Trust has enabled just that, accelerating the future of simulation training for paediatric experts at Starship, our national children’s hospital and around New Zealand.

Starship Child Health and the Starship Foundation today celebrated a $9 million donation from the Douglas family. It is the largest single gift in the national children’s hospital’s 27-year history.

An endowment fund has been established to transform Starship’s Simulation Programme (SSP), which will be renamed Douglas Starship Simulation Programme in honour of the gift and the wonderful generosity of the Douglas family to Starship.

SSP was established in 2010 to harness the potential of simulation to improve care and outcomes for children. It uses high fidelity, computer driven ‘manikins’ to educate and train both individuals and clinical teams and improve clinical systems and practice. Starship currently has six manikins or sim children, ranging from a premature baby through to a 14-year-old.

The Starship Simulation Programme provides realistic recreations of any imaginable medical emergency or important situation. The manikins can cry, cough, have a seizure, show symptoms of a blocked airway, and go into respiratory or cardiac arrest. Vital signs can be altered in real time, according to the scope of the session and the treatment provided by staff.

It helps train paediatric doctors, nurses and other staff, particularly around the complex teamwork required in a medical crisis. Clinical teams can practise a wide range of procedures for example putting in breathing tubes and drips, giving fluid and medication, and putting in a chest drain.

Dr Mike Shepherd, Director of Medical and Community at Starship Child Health, is a paediatric emergency specialist and a global expert on simulation training. He says; “Our teams are required to respond quickly and accurately. Simulation training teaches us not only how we might respond to a medical emergency to provide the best possible outcome for these children, but helps to improve patient safety and the way we work together.

“The crying, the fighting for breath, the beeping machines, all adds to the realism. It makes a difference; it makes us better at saving children’s lives and delivering excellent clinical care to children and whānau.” he adds.

The annual contribution from the endowment fund will enable the current programme to grow and develop all for the benefit of children throughout New Zealand. This will include paediatric simulation training in other DHBs around New Zealand, simulation based training for whānau, simulation of complex non-emergency activity and lead simulation research and outcome development.

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