The life-saving expert from Hartlepool who is training health workers on how to fight coronavirus

A man from Hartlepool has been called in to provide specialist life support training for health staff in the fight against the coronavirus.
Kevin McGuire who is providing specialist life-support training to health staff who could be facing Covid-19 duties.Kevin McGuire who is providing specialist life-support training to health staff who could be facing Covid-19 duties.
Kevin McGuire who is providing specialist life-support training to health staff who could be facing Covid-19 duties.

Kevin McGuire, and his fellow experts at a company called A to E Training and Solutions, have developed a highly specialised COVID-19 simulation teaching programme.

It means health workers, who normally work in other parts of the NHS, can be trained in aspects of care that would otherwise be unfamiliar to them.

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That very course was used to teach the first wave of clinicians at the Nightingale Hospital in London.

Kevin McGuire who is the Senior Resuscitation Officer and Regional Lead for Northern England and Scotland at A to E Training and Solutions.Kevin McGuire who is the Senior Resuscitation Officer and Regional Lead for Northern England and Scotland at A to E Training and Solutions.
Kevin McGuire who is the Senior Resuscitation Officer and Regional Lead for Northern England and Scotland at A to E Training and Solutions.

A to E Training and Solutions was asked by Health Education England & The Resuscitation Council to step in and help.

Kevin, who lived in Hartlepool from the 1970s, is a former student of St Cuthbert’s Primary, English Martyrs Catholic and Sixth Form College and Hartlepool College of Further Education.

He then worked in operating theatres initially as a practitioner in anaesthetics and recovery at the University of North Tees before becoming a Resuscitation Officer at South Tyneside for four years.

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Now, he is the Senior Resuscitation Officer and Regional Lead for Northern England and Scotland at A to E, and he described his contribution to the national fight against Covid-19 as ‘the pinnacle of my career.’

Chris Kurt-Gabel who founded A to E Training and Solutions.Chris Kurt-Gabel who founded A to E Training and Solutions.
Chris Kurt-Gabel who founded A to E Training and Solutions.

“That these programmes have been developed at such short notice by our staff across the UK highlights our determination to play our part in ridding our lovely country of this virus.”

Kevin said the public still has a huge role to play in the nationwide fight.

“They need to join in as well by staying at home and cutting off the food supply to this virus. Once we starve it, it will die and we can hopefully start to take our kids to the parks again.”

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A to E has already trained the first wave of clinicians at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital in London.

Bosses say they got the call on Friday, March 27, and had trained 33 people by Wednesday, April 1. But it doesn’t end there.

A to E is now likely to be training more staff who could be called into frontline service, and not just in London.

From this week, a training programme devised by A to E could be rolled out to 120 people a day and they could be deployed in any hospital involved in the fight against coronavirus.

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A series of programmes has also been developed so staff can help ‘stepdown patients’.

Kevin explained: “This is when the patient no longer requires ventilation and can be moved to another ward and it also frees up a ventilator for another patient.”

He looked back on his time working in the North East with top-class professionals.

“My time in theatres at North Tees was absolutely brilliant, the team are first class and the public in Teesside couldn't be in better hands than in North Tees theatres.”

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Chris Kurt-Gabel, the founder and executive chairman of A to E, said: “NHS Nightingale is a hospital built in nine days. It has been a rather fluid process.

"We got a call on Friday and we were there on Tuesday, delivering training to a modified teaching programme based on the patients they are going to be seeing.”

Kevin is also known to the people of Hartlepool as the organiser of the annual March of the Mods event.

The two-day show was set to take place on Friday, March 27 and Saturday, March 28, but it was postponed until further notice because of the coronavirus threat.

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