Calstow Health Authority have long been great believers in the importance of regular training for their staff. Theirs is an industry that's forever changing, and ensuring that everyone is up-to-date with the latest understanding, procedures and policies doesn't just benefit the organisation - it can also save lives. However, both the Authority and the patients need the training to be effective, and effective training will have to be engaging, understandable, and make the best use of the time available. George is responsible for training provision, and he's well aware of just how important it is that it makes the most positive and long-lasting impact. With Microsoft Office, he can be confident of just that result.

George wants to make sure that everyone who attends the training session comes prepared, so he can make the best use of the time he has on the day. Shortly before coming to the session, they'll all receive some preparatory material in the post, a slim textbook with a straightforward and visually appealing introduction to the subjects that will be covered during the training; George creates these booklets with Microsoft Publisher, because it's quick and easy, and gives him the ideal result.

There are three elements he wants to make the pages from: text, images and headings. The text goes in just as in a word processor; images can be dragged and dropped into place, and also edited from within Publisher (so you don't need a separate photo-editing application to make sure that they look their best); and headings can be transformed from plain text to a sophisticated and stylish graphical title with a few clicks. And with all the content looking its best, Publisher also provides George with assistance in arranging the different elements into the perfect layout.

With Publisher, he also produces material to be read during the session. But the bulk of the session is spoken, it's a series of short presentations of the issues - and it needs to have enough appeal to keep everyone focused. Microsoft PowerPoint is the answer here. Once again, the images he wants to use can be edited within the application, and he can also easily drop videos into the presentation to make it that much more involving and effective, or insert charts from Excel if he wants to illustrate the impact of the new procedures. Text will play a part, of course, and PowerPoint can convert plain text into stylish graphics, or a simple list into bullet points that appear gracefully and one-by-one, all at the touch of a button.

However, George has a lot of training to provide for many different people in numerous locations; time is not always on his side, and he can't always devote as much of it to preparing a training session as he'd like. Fortunately, both Publisher and PowerPoint make it easy to hurry the process along. Rather than having to create his booklets and presentations from scratch, George can point his browser at the Microsoft Office site, and download all manner of templates for every purpose - these templates have an attractive and professional layout and style ready to use, and all he has to do insert his own text and multimedia content into place. The results can be every bit as good, with much less effort and no worrying about fitting the work into George's busy schedule.

Effective results, efficient use of time. Those are exactly what the Health Authority needs, so that its staff can be fully trained with the latest skills and understanding, but without having a negative impact on staff availability. Having training provision of such high standard can make a world of difference, not just to the organisation, but also to the patients who depend on the best care being available at all times - and there's a clear benefit to be had from trainers like George going on training courses themselves, to make the best use of IT tools that can markedly improve the impact of the training they give to others. And whatever line of business your own organisation is involved with, if you need to train your staff, a small investment in the trainer can have positive implications right through the company, from top to bottom.