Benefits of Using Simulated Patients

"I love my work. I've seen first hand how much difference it has made to a whole host of healthcare professionals"

What is a Simulated Patient?

A simulated patient is an individual trained to help healthcare professionals become more skilled by providing an environment where they can develop their communication and diagnostic abilities.

What does an SP do?

All of our simulated patients progress through a thorough training programme. This enables them to become fully competent in adopting the role of a service user and providing objective and appropriate feedback.

A simulated patient allows healthcare professionals and students to:

Ensure the information asked of a patient is correct for making accurate diagnosis'
Make patients feel comfortable about talking about difficult issues
Explore the best way to break bad news
Make individuals from British ethnic minority groups feel comfortable communicating about health issues, outside of their culture/religion
Deliver the best customer experience to patients and service users

Who are simulated patients?

Simulated patients are recruited from everywhere and anywhere! – not really – need to be within travelling distance of Leeds or they get very little work!

Our SPs are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds. They may have been a patient or carer in the past, they may be a professional actor or simply a person interested in making a difference to the care that service users receive in the UK.

All of our simulated patients are equally trained to a consistently high level and are developed on an on-going basis, through appraisal as part of their career as an SP. This ensures our clients are guaranteed the very best service.

What qualities do you need to become an SP?

We are looking for the very highest level of SP to join our ever growing resource.

To be considered for a role as an SP and to join the largest, single SP provider in the UK you must:

Have a desire to make a difference to the culture of UK healthcare
Enjoy working with others
Have great communication skills and be able to effectively give, and receive, constructive and objective feedback
Have an imagination that can develop realistic characters from paper-based scenarios
Be able to empathise with peoples' feelings and to communicate with them effectively

You do not need to be an actor, or know anything about healthcare provision in the UK. We will provide you with all the training you need. We value the knowledge and insight that your life experiences bring.

If you would like to apply to be a simulated patient, please contact us for an application form, or alternatively, call us for more information on 0844 3510436.