News

Berne’s Blog — July 2019

Welcome to the first blog in quite a while. I decided to leave writing my blog for a while as the school was undergoing considerable staffing and organisational changes and I thought it would be best to complete the changes and begin writing again from within our new larger even more scientifically-focused National School of Healthcare Science.

Published on
1st August 2019
Written by
Berne Ferry
Filed under
Berne

Weather update: So, if you ask a British person about summer, they will tell you that they are looking forward to it … as the rain gets warmer!

Figure 1 -which I have included at the bottom of this blog- shows the revamped staffing structure of your school and who is doing what. You will see that staffing numbers have increased from 37 to 45 (– for you eagle-eyed readers who will see there are only 43 people in Figure 1- two more people still need to be embedded in the structure). Importantly, the school now has six full-time scientists who have joined us as Training Programme Directors (TPD) and you can see in the figure who they all are.

I suspect some of you will have already met many of them, Lisa Ayers, Graham Wilson, Jane Lynch, Debra Balderson, at the OSFAs, recruitment or other meetings. Owen Driskell joined us in July to lead on clinical academic careers and has immediately taken on the lead in the school for hosting the Topol Fellowship – of which more later.

In addition to a more permanent scientific staff who can inform and work with all our expert educational, accreditation, digital, curricula, assessment and administrative staff, we have also reorganized the internal operational structures to ensure that the school is flexible and able to quickly adapt to the rapidly moving medical educational landscape, for instance, this included merging the recruitment team with the accreditation team which makes huge sense as HEE via the school has accredited over 650 individual science departments in England alone and so can provide crucial information when demands for scientists arrive annually.

So, what’s been happening?

In these blogs, I thought I’d give you a regular update from:

Around the School

Level 7 Apprenticeships

Graham Wilson, our undergraduate Training Programme Director, has done some great work with Rob Farley from South Tees hospital as well as many other colleagues including employers from Trusts around the UK, university partners, associates from the Institute for Apprenticeships, Professional Bodies and Skills for Health(SKF). The employers have led in setting up a new trailblazer  group for a Healthcare Science Level 7 apprenticeship standard. The first successful meeting of that group was on July 3rd in London. This meeting was really well attended and Rob Farley and Rosemarie Simpson from SKF  did a super job of bringing many differing views together to start to move this standard on. Watch this space.

PTP Review

Graham Wilson is leading on this from the school. The review has started and the first meeting with PTP Special Interest Group (PTP SIG) which includes stakeholders from universities, Trusts, professional bodies and trainees allowed a number of key issues and questions to emerge. These have now moved to the second phase of the review to be discussed and debated with four scientific leads  each leading on an area of clinical science and a wide group of stakeholders on August 2nd

Curriculum Review

Has finally started- hooray!!! .  While this major piece of work has been quietly ongoing and preparations are now complete, it really began in earnest in May when we had a very successful Core Curriculum Meeting in Birmingham, (followed by another on July 29th) with all stakeholders present, including from Industry, universities, Trusts, NHSE, NHSI, PPI, Professional Bodies. …. . Experienced clinical Scientists from a number of fields have generously given their time to be Lead Editors for their specialist curricula and I would encourage any scientist in any field who is interested to find out who their lead editor is and join in with ensuring that your specialist curricula is what you believe will deliver the best specialist scientist in your field.  Your particular review group will produce your updated curricula and after approval by the regulator the HCPC, it will be used in STP training going forward, in future, the curriculum team at the school will ensure that curriculum review is ongoing all the time.

Topol Review & Topol Fellowships

The Topol Review https://topol.hee.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/HEE-Topol-Review-2019.pdf gave me the opportunity to chair the chapter on Organisational Development. It was a positive  experience and a chance to meet and learn from many colleagues in HEE, NHSE and digitally enhanced organizations and department such as Google Deep Mind, BMW, the ophthalmology department at Moorfield’s Hospital.   I am grateful to Patrick Mitchell for the opportunity and it was good to work with the excellent Sue Lacey-Bryant, Nicola Calder and other committed and hardworking colleagues on the Review. Patrick is now HEE executive Director for  Innovation and Transformation and is keen to ensure that the future workforce in the NHS and the patients that use it are empowered to receive the greatest benefits from a digitally enabled NHS which healthcare scientists are central to.

In this regard, the NSHCS will host the TOPOL fellows and this is an exciting new development for the school to help ensure the success of these fellows who will be vital to the NHS digital agenda. The Topol fellows will come from MULTI professional backgrounds and underpins the commitment that HEE, the school and the CSO has to successful multi- professional working in the trusts and community. In addition, it will position the school within HEE to work closely with the digital academy and other organizations in the vanguard of the new technologies. Watch this space for more information

Out and About

  • May 29th 2019:- Had a great Meeting with our Clinical Engineers in Cardiff to discuss new projects and how to embed and value the work of this fabulous scientific body.
  • June 5th :- fantastic to be able to accredit the innovative new undergraduate degree in Well Being Science at Warwick University
  • June 12th :- Closer working with our AHP colleagues in London on the ACP agenda
  • June 19th :- proud to deliver the graduate Speech to biological healthcare scientists at

Oxford Brookes University

  • June 26th :- Good to be invited to round table at Health Horizons in Cambridge to spread the word about Healthcare Science
  • June 27th :- Great that the school is involved in the CAMS (Community for Analytical Measurement Science).
  • July 1st:- Fabulous and productive Healthcare Science Day in Bristol in the South West.

Last updated on 17th February 2022

Feature image for Berne’s Blog — July 2019