Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust

Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust provides healthcare in hospital and in the community to 258,000 people across Southport, Formby and West Lancashire.

Acute care is provided at Southport and Formby District General Hospital and Ormskirk and District General Hospital. This includes adult and children’s accident and emergency services, intensive care and a range of medical and surgical specialities. Women’s and children’s services, including maternity, are provided at Ormskirk Hospital.

The North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre at Southport hospital provides specialist care for spinal patients from across the North West, North Wales and the Isle of Man.

The Trust also provided sexual health services across the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton and the Borough of West Lancashire.

The Trust is committed to developing and training medical students and doctors to meet the challenges of changing health care and maintaining high professional standards- while ensuring service continuity.

    Placement opportunities
    • Excellent teaching programmes across all specialties
    • Weekly consultant bedside teaching
    • Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre
    • Teaching within the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre
    • Foundation Year bedside teaching programme, including revision sessions
    • Highly commended palliative care placement (including communication skills) at Queenscourt Hospice, situated next door to Southport Hospital
    Clinical skills provision

    The Trust has two Clinical Skills Rooms; one at Southport and one at Ormskirk. Training equipment including part task trainers are available for a wide range of clinical skills, including all mandatory fourth and fifth year teaching requirements.

    Sessions are facilitated by the Clinical Skills and Simulation Facilitator as well as expert Senior Clinicians.

    Group sizes are purposely kept small for Clinical Skills and Simulation teaching, to ensure all students are given the time to exercise hands-on practical skills under close expert supervision.

    Feedback from students reflects this when students are asked what was most useful about the sessions:

    “Small group teaching”

    “Time to practice ourselves and getting used to the equipment”

    “Having a go at it”

    “Individual practice on models - Practical nature of the session“

    “Good comprehensive teaching”

    “Friendly and helpful teacher”

    “Talking through each step individually”

    “Watching us go through practical”

    “Very small group and easy to go through as many times as needed”

    “Individual attention given”

    Free practice sessions are available throughout late April and May in the lead up to fourth year final exams, with further practice available throughout the year.

    The Southport site has a Simulation Room, housing a high fidelity patient simulator and video debrief equipment.

    In addition to mandatory teaching requirements, all fourth year students attend the Immediate Life Support (ILS) course, whilst all fifth year students attend our multidisciplinary Acute Illness Management (AIM) course.

    What's unique?
    • Easy access to public transport for Liverpool and Manchester
    • Small and friendly
    • Strong MDT environment in the trust
    • 1:1 ratio of student to consultant supervision
    • Monthly Undergraduate Forum- a useful platform for all students to get together to identify and discuss any issues
    • Excellent MDT teaching programme provided across all specialties
    • Small teaching groups
    • Fourth and fifth year students only
    • 100% LOCAS pass rate
    • High number of SAS doctors included in the delivery of teaching programmes
    • Fourth and fifth year students attend ILS course (Immediate Life Support)
    • Excellent pastoral support for students 
    • Close to the beach
    Student testimonials

    “A friendly and welcoming Trust!”

    “Great teaching provided by consultants, the weekly consultant bedside teaching in particular is fantastic!”

    “It’s nice being greeted in the corridors and wards by everyone and the staff are keen to find out how we are getting on.”

    Other information

    All students have their own dedicated common room, classroom, and two on-call rooms on site. This is situated right next door to the Clinical Education Centre.

    24 hour access to our libraries.

    Hospital facilities include a gym, swimming pool, canteen, and coffee shop. 10 minutes’ walk to local amenities, including McDonalds, Tesco’s & Aldi.

    There is a minibus that operates between the two sites.

    Its maximum intake is 36 fourth year and 20 fifth year medical students.