News from the National School
Scientist Training Programme applications open Monday 11 January
Applications for the 2024 cohort will open on Monday 15 January 2024 at 11:00am GMT.
On our website we have published essential information to guide applicants through the STP application process including:
- An overview of the STP application process
- Before starting your STP application
- Making your STP application
- Completing the situational judgement test (SJT)
- Shortlisting and sub-preferences
- FAQs for applicants to the Scientist Training Programme
- Trainee Clinical Scientist advert
- Generic job description for trainee healthcare scientist
- Core person specification
- Disability Confidence Policy
Click here to view our Scientist Training Programme applicants section
Capturing Feedback on the Scientist Training Programme curriculum
Starting this month, we’re opening a process to capture feedback on the revised STP curriculum. You can provide feedback through the Curriculum Library. In each page of the revised STP curriculum, you’ll see a ‘feedback’ option in the Curriculum Library toolbox.
Feedback can be provided by any and all stakeholders of the programme at any time. Although the process is anonymous, we do ask for some information on your involvement with the STP to help us evaluate the process. The feedback process has been designed to collect information on one element of the curriculum at a time to help us process the data and can be accessed as many times as needed to provide feedback on different elements of the curriculum at different times.
Feedback provided will be used in a rolling review process for curricula. The introduction of a rolling review process to maintain the STP curriculum supports our aim to provide a scientifically robust, future-proofed curriculum to ensure that our trainees ‘work at the limits of science’. Collecting feedback is the first step to inform this process and we’ll provide more information about how rolling review will be carried out soon.
Click here to view the STP Curriculum Library
Express an interest in sharing your good training practice
In many areas of our work, we receive requests to support trainers in the workplace by connecting them with each other and, in particular, by helping them learn from centres and colleagues that have developed good training practice.
This year the School is hoping to launch a new initiative in which we run regular webinars featuring trainers or trainer networks sharing their practice.
We are keen to share and promote good practice in many different areas. We are particularly keen to share practice that is concerned with training planning, work-based training methods, working with the new STP curricula, supporting reflective practice, generating evidence for training activities, supporting trainees and preparing trainees for their final assessment. We will not limit the scope of the webinars to these topics and are hoping to promote good practice very broadly.
If you or your network have developed practice that you feel could be valuable to share with your peers, please express an interest in sharing your practice via the form linked to below.
Click here to express an interest in contributing to our sharing good practice webinar series
News from our partners
Healthcare Science Week 2024
Healthcare Science Week is a chance for NHS trusts to tell their local community and other health professionals first-hand about how science and technology is vital in modern patient care and change lives for the better. It’s also an invaluable opportunity for existing healthcare science staff to inspire the next generation of healthcare science staff by promoting the new career structures in local schools and colleges.
This year Healthcare Science Week takes place 11-15 March 2024.
Click here to view resources available to help promote Healthcare Science Week
PgCert in Clinical Data Science at the University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is now accepting applications on the PgCert in Clinical Data Science for 2024-25. This Clinical Data Science course, commissioned by the NSHCS in the NHS, and developed in collaboration with the NSHCS and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust stakeholders, aims to empower healthcare professionals from across the health and social care workforce, from Knowledge and Library Specialists to nurses, AHPs, healthcare scientists, doctors and beyond, to apply data science in practice. The course is aligned to NHS values, aiming to enhance your ability to work better together and translate data into patient benefit.
The course will support the development of data science, statistics, and machine learning capabilities across the health and social care workforce, leading to a postgraduate qualification in Clinical Data Science.
This is an introductory course which does not aim to train you to become a data scientist. Instead, you will learn how to work with data and informatics teams on digital transformation and research projects and give you skills to make use of data that you may have available in your area. You will combine your clinical, health and social care knowledge and experience with computer science methods and maths, stats and machine learning skills to make use of your data and add value to your clinical work.
The course will start in September 2024 and the deadline for applications is Sunday 28th April 2024 23:59.
For additional details about the course, entry requirements, and advice on how to apply, including guidance on your personal statement, see the University’s website.
Further information about the background of the programme can be found in this information pack.
Funding opportunities for places on the Clinical Data Science Programme are hopefully to become available. However, specific details are not yet available but will be provided in due course. The University of Manchester pages will be updated once this information is available.
CPD units in Clinical Data Science at the University of Manchester 2023-24
The University of Manchester is accepting CPD applications for each of the individual units that form the PgCert in Clinical Data Science. The four units available are:
Human Factors and Digital Transformation
You will be provided with an overview of the process of capturing and presenting user requirements and implementing and evaluating systems in the clinical, health and social care environment.
This unit starts in February 2024 and will run for 9 weeks. The deadline for applications for this unit is Friday 19 January 2024.
Data Visualisation and Communication
You will focus on the theories of visualisation and how to explore and communicate data through visualisations that can be tailored for different audiences without unintentionally misleading or confusing the intended recipient.
This unit starts in May 2024 and will run for 9 weeks. The deadline for applications for this unit is Friday 19 January 2024.
Clinical Data Engineering
This unit introduces you to data wrangling and provides you with an understanding of structured and unstructured data formats, how data is modelled in various commonly used database systems, as well as an awareness of data/cyber security.
This unit starts in September 2024 and will run for 9 weeks. The deadline for applications for this unit is Thursday 30 May 2024.
Maths, Stats and Machine Learning
You will cover data analysis methods, including statistical learning (statistics and machine learning methods) supported by knowledge and understanding of the mathematical principles underpinning these methods.
This unit starts in September 2024 and will run for 9 weeks. The deadline for applications for this unit is Thursday 30 May 2024.