FAQs on the STP Final Year Assessment for trainers and assessors

Scenarios presented to trainees in the assessment will sample from across the curriculum. A number of scenarios will focus on areas of practice within the trainee’s specialty. In addition, a number of scenarios presented to trainees will focus on the core modules which provide the skills, knowledge and behaviours required by all Clinical Scientists. Trainees should be prepared to respond to scenarios on any area from within their curriculum in the assessment.

Completing work-based assessments will help support trainees to prepare for the STP Final Year Assessment. The work-based assessments will help trainees develop the skills and applied knowledge of practice needed for the assessment and also provide experience of completing ‘in-person’ assessments where they are required to respond to scenarios and talk through their rationale for their actions.

We will also provide more information so trainees can get a feel for how the assessment will work and see the virtual platform used to deliver the assessment in action before they sit their assessment. We will add this information to the website before the first sitting of the assessment in July 2025 to allow trainees time to prepare.

If you meet the requirements to be an assessor, you can express interest in joining the bank for the STP Final Year Assessment. You don’t need to be available for the next sitting of the assessment, we’ll get in touch before hand to check your availability. We would, however, recommend you make a note of the dates of the sittings and try to hold that time as we can’t run the assessment without assessors. If you are a training officer or currently involved with supporting trainees on the programme, you can still express interest in joining the bank. We will endeavour to ensure assessors are independent and trainees are not assessed by your current or past Training Officer. It may be the case that a trainee knows their assessor, for smaller specialties this may be unavoidable.

Trainees do not submit any work in advance of the assessment so there is nothing you need to read and no questions for you to prepare. We will ask assessors to undertake training and attend an assessor briefing before assessing. We will provide more details before the sitting you will be assessing at. We have outlined the assessor role and responsibilities on the final assessment specialty roles page, including an overview of the time commitment. As an assessor, you will be assigned to assess a scenario and all the information required to complete the assessment, including the questions and mark scheme will be provided to you.

The assessment will be delivered online using a purpose-built assessment platform. The platform has already been used extensively for assessment of healthcare professionals in NHS Trusts and is therefore accessible through most Trust IT systems. Before the assessment we will provide you with details of the platform and support you to log in, test your system and use the platform.

The platform will provide the trainee with the pre-reading for the scenario you will be assessing, and then automatically move the trainee into the station with you. Once in the station, you will be able to see the trainee through a video link embedded in the platform. You will need to make sure you select the right marking form for the right trainee and complete the mark form. Other than that, you do not have to do anything to move to different stations or trainees.

As outlined in the STP Final Year Assessment regulations, we will endeavour to ensure assessors are independent and do not assess trainees who they are, or have been, a training officer for. For smaller specialties in particular, it may be the case that you will assess a trainee you have already assessed in the workplace or MSc, or know through your specialty community.