News from the National School
Healthcare Science funding request for STP, HSST and ETP training posts now open
The NHS England Healthcare Science portal is now open to receive your organisation’s funding request for STP, HSST and ETP training posts.
Your funding request is your organisation’s commitment to hosting and supporting a trainee in their respective healthcare science discipline through to completion of their training programme. Your request should reflect what your organisation is effectively able to deliver and NHS England encourages collaboration with your regional leads and ICBs to assist you in submitting a request which also meets your future workforce needs.
The portal closes this year on Friday 8 September at 17.00.
If you have any queries at all, please contact your NHS England regional office.
School announces 1,000 NHS departments achieve accreditation to deliver healthcare science training across the UK
We are thrilled to announce a significant milestone of healthcare science training in the NHS as over 1,000 departments have now achieved accreditation to deliver top-quality training programmes across healthcare science.
The departments are accredited to deliver training for our Scientist Training Programme (STP), Higher Specialist Scientist Training (HSST) Programme and Echocardiography Training Programme (ETP).
Elizabeth Plumb, Head of Accreditation at the National School of Healthcare Science said:
“We commend the dedicated efforts of the accredited departments, whose commitment to excellence and desire to increase numbers in the healthcare science workforce has made this milestone possible. Their hard work and passion for providing high-quality training opportunities will undoubtedly contribute to the growth and development of the healthcare science workforce.
I also want to recognise the support of the healthcare science community and thank all those that volunteer their time to work with us on reviewing submissions and attending accreditation visits. Without their hard work and valuable time we would not have achieved this momentous moment.”
Click here to find more information on the accredited departments and the accreditation process
School End-point Assessment Organisation wins Best Collaboration award in partnership with NCFE at the EPA 2023 Awards
The collaboration between NHS England NSHCS and NCFE saw both organisations combining their strengths to deliver high quality EPAs for the Level 4 Oral Health Practitioner standard successfully.
The National School provided the highly specialist knowledge of the educational framework for training and development of healthcare scientists across more than 40 specialties and developed high quality assessment materials for the EPAs delivered by NCFE. This is a deep and meaningful partnership that supports the UK’s ambition to meet the future healthcare workforce needs and support vital NHS services across the nation.
The NSHCS EPA Manager said:
“We are delighted to receive this award and recognition alongside our NCFE colleagues. It represents what can be achieved when the public and private sector join together to demonstrate best practice for better educational outcomes for our apprentices, who are always at the heart of what we do.”
Equality, diversity and inclusion committee report from the School now available
As part of our ongoing Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) work, the school is pleased to announce the publication of the annual report.
Highlights from the report include:
- NSHCS in-house changes to processes
- training for NSHCS employees
- resources produced for our stakeholders
- collaborations
- priorities for the coming year
Click here to read the equality, diversity and inclusion committee report
Changes to assessment on new STP curricula – webinars
We will be running a webinar in early September for Training Officers and trainers of STP trainees who are on the new curricula, to introduce the changes we are making to assessment on the programme.
The webinar will cover:
the standards we are introducing for the performance and conduct of work-based assessment
the progress we are making with the redesign of the final assessment for 2025
the progress we are making with a revised approach to progression review.
The webinar will take place on September 5 from 1pm – 2pm. Follow the link below to register for the webinar.
A parallel webinar introducing the changes for trainees will take place on September 11 at 1pm.
Click here to register for the webinar for trainers
Our next Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative meeting – Tuesday 7 November
The Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative has been set up to enable collaboration between the healthcare science work-based training centres, the relevant Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), the professional bodies and the National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS) thereby ensuring education and training within healthcare science is relevant and of high quality.
Our next Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative meeting will be held virtually on MS Teams on Tuesday 7 November.
Click here to view information about future Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative meetings
Upcoming events
Monday 4 September – STP Computing in Healthcare course
Friday 8 September – STP induction day for 2023 cohort
Wednesday 13 September – STP new trainer induction
Wednesday 4 October – ETP induction day for 2023 cohort
Wednesday 11 October – HSST induction day for 2023 cohort
Wednesday 18 October – Newcastle University Employer Liaison Event
Wednesday 18 October – Virtual Prenatal Genetics Short Course
Tuesday 7 November – Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative meeting