Princess Alexandra Hospital has been selected to lead a new development centre for NHS staff training.

The hospital in Hamstel Road, Harlow, was announced as the new lead employer of the National Skills Academy Health Essex Excellence Centre, which aims to tackle the skills gap in the health service and improve the quality of medical training, yesterday.

The hospital is one of five selected to run the country's new excellence centres as part of a first phase pilot programme co-funded by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) costing £1.9m over three years.

Each centre will offer an array of face-to-face and blended learning programmes as well as coordinating the development of 20 new national e-learning resources centred on patient care, including a course on providing community care in areas such as dementia support, medicine management, and recognising signs of abuse.

Head of Training at The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust Martin Smith said: “The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in Harlow has been very proud and honoured to lead the successful Essex-wide Consortium Excellence Centre application.  

"Our success will further develop and enhance the partnership and collaborative working already in place across Essex.

“Improving the delivery of high quality, values based, integrated Patient Care has been at the heart of our application.

"We also hope to  provide suitably trained and competent healthcare support staff to carry out their roles whilst working within our learning organisations”