Message from Dr Owen Driskell, HSST Training Programme Director
We hope you are enjoying your summer so far.
Recruitment for 2021 starters is well underway with more HSSTs than ever joining the programme. We are working with existing HSSTs to support them through their programmes. We are working with those finishing their programmes and we have issued a number of completion certificates just this month. This cycle is now continuous as HSST becomes established. The contribution of the HSST trainees, and all involved in delivering the programme, to the NHS is enormous. Witnessing your development journeys is a privilege.
An important note we are tweaking the IAPS showcase submission process with IAPS showcase submission for the November IAPS being the 1st September. More detail will be given shortly. Further we plan to run an IAPS showcase session on Friday 6th August. It will be recorded and put on the website if you cannot make it.
Equality, diversity and inclusion at the School
Message from the School EDI Committee Chair, Chanelle Peters
It gives me great pleasure to share our new equality, diversity and inclusion page where we intend to use the School platform to promote change, become more educated and to support our trainees and training officers with any matters relating to equality, diversity and inclusion.
The School’s committee currently collaborates with the STP Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic network, the Chief Scientific Officer’s Office and HEE Regional Diversity, Inclusion and Participation Managers to improve and support education and training in areas such as recruitment and general workplace practice.
Click here to view our new equality, diversity and inclusion page and meet the committee
We would like to introduce our conscious inclusion training which is one of our first steps to provide all our stakeholders with training in understanding unconscious bias.
We hope you enjoy the new resources and we would love to hear any feedback you may have in relation to this. You can contact us using our dedicated email address nshcs.edi@hee.nhs.uk
The HEE National Education and Training Survey closes this week
The National Education and Training Survey (NETS) is the only national survey open to all healthcare students across all clinical learning environments in England.
The survey is run by Health Education England (HEE) as part of our work to improve the experience of all students and trainees working and training in clinical services across the NHS and beyond.
The survey closes on Friday and takes just 10 minutes to fill in. Your feedback will help placement providers to make real changes to improve the student experience.
Change to the way you showcase evidence from your e-portfolio for IAPS
Ahead of the forthcoming IAPS events, we intend to make a change to the way in which you select and showcase evidence from your e-portfolio to share with your IAPS assessment panel.
Previously, ahead of their IAPS, we have asked HSST trainees to select five existing OneFile submissions from their portfolio as their showcase, which is shared with their assessment panel.
Ahead of the forthcoming IAPS event, in order to help you to sell yourselves better and more clearly to your assessors, you will be asked:
- to make five new submissions inside OneFile, in a new ‘showcase’ module, one for each of the five domains of the Standards of Proficiency
- to provide some narrative about the evidence that you wish to showcase against each of the domains.
In making your submissions inside this new ‘showcase’ module, we do not expect you to submit new work or new evidence. Rather, this is a way in which you will be able to draw together and summarise existing evidence from your portfolio and match it against a specific domain as a solid example of work that evidences how you are meeting the standards of that domain. In asking you to do this, you will have the opportunity to summarise and contextualise evidence for each domain. We anticipate that this will help your IAPS assessors to understand your work and to use each of the five submissions as the starting point for your IAPS professional conversation about how you feel you have and are performing against each of the domains.
We will provide clear and thorough guidance about how to prepare and submit your showcased evidence on the School website early in August.
Click here to find out more about the Independent Assessment of Professional Skills (IAPS)
Meet the School's training support team
We offer regular drop-in sessions which provide a means through which trainees and training officers can speak to members of the School directly to access their expertise and guidance.
The drop-in sessions are offered on a regular basis and are themed to maintain focus for particular areas of support or guidance.
The discussions are confidential and usually offered on a 15 minute basis per person. Any issues not resolved or requiring follow up will be logged and further meetings arranged to address unresolved issues.
Click here to find out more about our drop-in sessions
Below are the dates for our upcoming drop-in sessions:
- 25th August – Training support, scientific support
- 29th September – Training support, scientific support
- 27th October – Training support, scientific support
- 24th November – Training support, scientific support
Click here to find our drop-in sessions timetable and event joining links
HSST Interruptions
We continue to offer the opportunity for trainees on the HSST to apply for an interruption to their training if the pandemic is having a significant impact on their ability to engage with or progress through the training. This process has been a major success in offering flexibility to trainees who have been required to take leading roles in supporting the response to the pandemic and keeping services running.
Click here to find more information on applications for interruption to training (Expired link)
Missed a previous edition of the HSST Monthly Memo?
We’ve published copies of the Monthly Memo for STP trainees and training officers on our website.
Click here to view previous editions of the HSST Monthly Memo