A new course helping healthcare workers to improve their skills is to be taught in Dagenham.

The CU London campus - located at the former Dagenham Civic Centre - has been transformed to include a new health hub.

It has now been approved to provide the Independent and Supplementary Prescribing (ISP) course for eligible healthcare professionals, with the first new starters welcomed this autumn.

Andy Ginn, CU London’s associate pro-vice-chancellor, said he was delighted to add the course to the campus’s offering

He said: “I’m particularly proud to see this initiative taking off in Barking and Dagenham. Not only are we fortunate to be surrounded by excellent healthcare trusts delivering across east London and beyond, but we’re also reinterpreting the former Civic Centre’s history as being originally designed for potential use as a hospital and adapting this vision for modern times.

“Healthcare professionals wishing to gain new and updated skills can now do so thanks to the excellent work of our colleagues in the health and life sciences faculty as the university expands this successful provision into areas where there is clearly a demand for a new course.”

The university is set to work with NHS Trust partners to deliver the ISP through the Dagenham campus and continue to support the provision of continuing professional development for healthcare staff in east London. It is already available at some of its other sites.

Alison Bardsley, associate professor for non-medical prescribing and nursing degree end point assessment for the school of nursing, midwifery and health at Coventry University, hopes this will pave the way to further collaboration and educational opportunities.

She said: “The course attracts healthcare professionals from all over the UK and we hope that provision through the Dagenham campus will support healthcare professionals to access this qualification nearer to home if they require.”

Debbie Smith, director of nursing at the North East London NHS Foundation Trust, added: “We are delighted that our first cohort of staff has commenced their non-medical prescribing course at Coventry University.

“The university offers a very flexible programme which is locally based and we are pleased to be working in partnership with them to ensure our staff become safe and confident prescribers.”