Recognising and assessing medical problems in psychiatric settings

The course is explicitly multidisciplinary focusing on clinical staff including medical, nursing and support staff as well as other professional groups. The scenarios use a high-fidelity approach through different hybrid simulation modalities such as full body manikins, part task trainers and simulated patients. This course is being delivered in a number of quality assured clinical skills and simulation centres across our region and beyond.

RAMPPS is an important course as it helps to address the mental health workforce agenda and the inter-relatedness of physical and mental health. Patients suffering from serious mental health problems have more physical health problems and a greater morbidity and mortality rate than the general population: A threefold excess mortality and a life expectancy of around twenty years less. Simulation provides a safe environment for multi-disciplinary staff to learn and train together enabling them to improve patient safety and experience.

Resources

The RAMPPS course handbook

All resources including 21 scenarios are contained in the 2019 RAMPPS course handbook, available to download and print here.

eLearning Modules

The RAMPPS course is supported by our 2 freely available interactive modules, each takes about 15 minutes to complete. The e-learning modules are suitable for all staff in mental health settings to help improve skills in recognising the deteriorating patient using patient safety tools such as the ABCDE approach, AVPU and the SBARD communication tool. All staff can complete the module as “stand alone” without the need to access the RAMPPS simulation course.

The RAMPPS adult /older adult course or RAMPPS Children and Young People module can be accessed either via eLFH RAMPPS e-learning module, or for NHS employed staff the course can be accessed (locally and nationally) via ESR. Search and enrol for 000 RAMPPS or 000 RAMPPS_CYP.

Publications

The RAMPPS work has been presented at various local, national and international conferences. Copies of 2 journal articles published in Health Informatics journal and Mental Health Practice journal can be found in the related articles section below.

RAMPPS has been chosen as a case study on pages 21-23 in the NHS England publication Improving the physical health of people with serious mental illness: a practical toolkit and in MINDSet.

RAMPPS can also be found as an example of upskilling the mental health workforce in the HEE STAR.

Faculty training and quality assurance

RAMPPS has a standardised approach to training faculty to provide consistency for all RAMPPS courses. There is a minimum slide set for training and a "gold standard" facilitator pathway, available to download below under related documents.