Register for the November Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative
Our next Healthcare Science Education and Training Collaborative will take place online on the afternoon of Tuesday 12 November 2024.
View the agenda and register for the event
The School is introducing a new STP final assessment for 2025 – We need your expertise
Following the introduction of the new STP curricula in 2022, the School has been working on changes to the assessment of the STP. We have previously shared more information on the changes, including the changes planned for the STP final assessment.
From summer 2025, the School is introducing the STP Final Year Assessment as the summative assessment for the STP.
The aim of the STP Final Year Assessment is to ensure that trainees are able to practise safely, uphold professional standards and are ready to register with the HCPC as a Clinical Scientist. To demonstrate this, trainees will be asked to describe how they would manage typical scenarios that may be faced by threshold-level, newly registered Clinical Scientists.
We need your support to deliver the STP Final Year Assessment. We need assessors from all specialties to ensure the assessment is robust and representative of your practice. Whether you’ve been involved in previous STP assessment, or you’d like to be involved for the first time, please express your interest in supporting the STP Final Year Assessment.
Find out more about the assessor roles and express interest
School launches comprehensive training and assessment guidance and support
Over the last 12 months the School has developed and launched a comprehensive set of guidance and standards and learning resources to support trainees and trainers in the workplace.
The School’s training standards and their associated support resources are designed to help trainers to know how to work from best practice from the start. There are 5 training standards and for each one there is a suite of training materials available on the NHS Learning Hub which we encourage trainers to access.
Alongside the training standards and expectations we have developed the NSHCS training standards – trainee responsibilities. These outline trainee responsibilities mapped against the 5 headings of the training standards and expectations for trainers. For each of the 5 training standards, we have developed ‘quick guides’ on the NHS Learning Hub for trainees on specific topics.
In late 2023 we launched the NSHCS work-based assessment standards. The work-based assessment standards clearly define how work-based assessments should be conducted and the responsibilities of trainees, trainers and assessors.
Over the last year we have launched a broad range of online learning resources in the NHS Learning Hub for trainers about their role as workplace educators and for trainees to support them to succeed within their workplace training and assessment. For example, there are guides to reflective practice and to developing evidence to demonstrate achievement of training activities
View the NSHCS catalogue of resources in the NHS Learning Hub
Sharing Good Practice webinar series – view, sign up and share
In April the School launched its Sharing Good Practice webinar series, designed to support trainers in the workplace by connecting them with each other and by helping them learn from centres and colleagues that have developed good practice.
The webinars have proved to be very popular and there will be a new set of webinars held through the coming months. On the School website you can view recordings of the webinars and download webinar presentations. You will also find details of upcoming Sharing Good Practice events. You can also express an interest in sharing your practice if you have developed practice that you feel could be valuable to share with your peers.
Find out more about our Sharing Good Practice webinar series
Clinical Data Science PG Cert numbers grow
In September 2024 a very diverse group of healthcare professionals have become the newest cohort on the Clinical Data Science PG Cert programme which the School have commissioned from the University of Manchester. 50 places on this cohort are being fully funded by NHS England.
The Clinical Data Science programme is designed to give healthcare professionals the opportunity to develop their data science skills and drive digital transformation in their practice. Participants will bring with them their clinical knowledge and experience, and the programme will provide the computer science methods and maths, stats and machine learning skills to allow practitioners to make use of their data, adding value to their clinical work to benefit patients.
NHS England intends to fully fund places on the autumn 2025 intake of the Clinical Data Science Postgraduate Certificate programme and beyond.
Find out more about the Clinical Data Science programme
New training programme data section launched on School website
The School has launched a new data section on its website in which we publish a growing range of datasets relating to our training programmes. These include:
- a set of maps showing where trainees on the ETP, HSST and STP are in training across each region of England, plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
- data about trainee recruitment to the STP including statistics on application ratios, age, gender, and ethnicity
We intend to expand the range of datasets we publish about our training programmes and this new data section will be the home for all the data that we publish.
View our collection of training programme data