A Virtual street has been created in Brentford to ensure the nurses and care professionals of tomorrow get the best quality training.

Nursing, midwifery and healthcare students at the University of West London (UWL)'s Brentford site are now able to follow the lives and changing health conditions of virtual residents of The Street.

The trainees get virtual simulation access to fictional characters with changing health needs and economic circumstances over three years.

It has been developed to focus training on holistic care, bridging the gap between textbook care conditions and application of practice with health deterioration and reassessment of care in mind.

As well as making innovative use of technology, The Street allows for high-quality training to continue when access to traditional teaching space is restricted during lockdown.

Aby Mitchell, Senior Lecturer at UWL, said: "With lockdown, we quickly moved to a virtual learning platform to replace practice hours with theory and create online skills sessions to prepare students going into practice.

"The Street offer students a chance to consider variables including deterioration in health and socioeconomic factors alongside clinical need, which improves holistic practice and overall patient care while helping to contextualise and consolidate learning.

"It has proved to be a highly successful teaching innovation allowing us to overcome some of the COVID-19 restrictions while opening up untapped possibilities in teaching for the future."