Our heartfelt thanks to those making the programme a reality

The numerous waves of the pandemic and the challenges that continue to rise translated into a chronic need for healthcare professionals from other specialities to be trained and deployed to ICUs to absorb the high flow of patients in need of intensive care.

The homogeneous C19_SPACE training programme (COVID-19 Skills Preparation Course to provide Intensive Care Medicine Skills for Health Professionals Not Regularly Working on Intensive Care Units) is now celebrating over 20,000 healthcare professionals on board, out of which 69% are certified.

The detailed analysis of the results shows that the programme increased the knowledge of its trainees significantly, leading to an increase in the available capacity to support the regular ICU staff and take care of COVID-19 patients.

It also underlines that the programme secured a “safe” introduction to the ICU, taken away the burden and additional stress of acute training on the scene. One needs to realise that these numbers have been achieved in the context of continuous and chronic stress on healthcare workers in ICU across Europe.

We keep receiving positive feedback from trainees expressing their gratitude and highlighting the substantial added value of the programme to the healthcare community. There is also an important trend in trainers who wish to continue delivering this training programme in their hospitals.

This training programme and its success proves that, united, the European healthcare community can prepare and fight against the pandemic through increased homogenous knowledge in intensive care across Europe.

We wish to thank the European Commission for its support to the frontline healthcare workers across the EU in times of such a crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic and all those who made this unique initiative a reality.