2025 Scientist Training Programme core curriculum review

Current priority areas

• 10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future
• Science in healthcare: Delivering the NHS Long Term Plan – The Chief Scientific Officer’s strategy

Stakeholder feedback

Feedback collecting through the Curriculum Library survey collected between January 2024 and November 2025. All stakeholder feedback is presented verbatim.

S-C1 Professional Foundations of Healthcare and Clinical Science

Module aim

• I’d like to add my vote in favour of the discussion on adding sustainability, preferably to both the core and specialist modules.
• This module need more clear guidance on what is expected. There is a large variation on what trainees believe is required to complete this module. It can be individualised to a trainee however some are taking on elements that just require attending a short workshop while others are completing work that is more similar to a rotation.

Training activities

• 6 – This seems over-ambitious for STP level! It’s not something I have ever done in my 20 year career – better suited for HSST curriculum I feel.
• 7 – Multi-source feedback (MSF) are an excellent tool to help trainees see how they are progressing – however myself and colleagues have found them very difficult to complete for trainees who are in the first year/just in their second year. The new curriculum has taken the majority of the science content out of the curriculum, trainees are also no longer doing little research projects etc, so it is difficult to be able to comment on the majority of topics in the MSF. Leadership, teamwork, scientific ability, writing. Please keep MSF but please urgently review the topics we are scoring them on as we simply cannot do this anymore with the new curriculum in place.
• 7 – I think there should be a requirement to complete a MSF at the end of the first year _and_ end of the second year – to co-inside with annual appraisals and the new assessment policy
• 12 – As a trainee, multi professional working is a given in all roles. This competency just gets combined with another and adds more work trying to hit considerations that aren’t always relevant to the main competency.
• 14 – Environmental sustainability should be considered during the evaluation of innovations, ensuring environmental as well as financial costs are considered.
• 15 – Seems overly ambitious for STP level -better suited to HSST curriculum. It’s not something that would naturally arise during 3 years of working in Radiotherapy Physics.

Direct Observation of Practical Skills (DOPS)

• All – I feel the DOPs and OCEs in this module are quite centric towards trainees in a patient facing role. There is not much flexibility for specialisms such as histopathology in which we do not face patients, and our choices are rather limited. It would be useful for us to have some options which are broader IE leadership within the lab team, running a clinic autonomously, providing training etc.
• Expectation to complete 4 CBDs with no indication of what these should be about leaves too much room for interpretation with assessors. Difficult as a trainee and assessor to know what can and can not be used for these.

Academic learning outcomes

• 1 – This doesn’t necessarily apply to the STP modules, more to the university hosting the masters component. However, as a second year trainee in medical physics I would have appreciated an emphasis on teaching competency in Excel (including macro scripting etc.) which I have found to be much more important in the workplace than Python coding (though teaching in both would be ideal!).

Another element of a module

• Having studied on the new curriculum and recently moving into my band 7 post, some of the first project work I have been asked to undertake are clinical risk assessments, validation and verification work as well as performing Duty Biochemist (DB) when business continuity plans (BCP) require implementation. These are essential jobs for band 7 clinical scientists and none of them are addressed in the curriculum anywhere. Given that most band 7’s will be DB early on in their post, practicing safely when dangerous scenarios arise is surely something that should at least be discussed with the trainees who are close to finishing the program? Personally I thought across the whole curriculum, I learnt very little from performing training activities, these essential skills surely need a new form of assessment to at least introduce STP’s to the essential components of band 7 work.
• I attempted to submit this form to provide feedback on another section but I cannot, so will append here. I would be really interested to gauge how people view training activities. Personally as mentioned previously, I cannot remember 90% of the work I did for training activities across the whole curriculum. In comparison, I distinctly remember all the OCE’s, DOPS and CBD’s performed over the three years. The current format of training activities, actively encourage trainees to copy out of kit inserts and textbooks and this is not useful learning experience. When I look at the competency assessments that UKAS expect laboratory/clinical staff to follow, they encourage critical thinking, safety prioritisation and escalation when information is not understood. How are the STP training activities so far removed from these essential skills that are critical to performing the day job.
• Since there is a wider directive towards including sustainability into all medical training, can I suggest that it is included somewhere within the STP training. This could be very light touch, or it could be the trainee either 1) demonstrating that they have considered sustainability within a research/QI project, or 2) committed to training in this area, or 3) provided a reflection on some aspect of clinical laboratory sustainability practices/current progress
• please consider a specific module on the impact of climate change on healthcare
• As the NHS works towards its goal of becoming Net Zero by 2040 (Health and Care Act 2022), the impact of climate change and extreme weather on patient health is becoming increasingly clear, as is the environmental “footprint” of healthcare itself. As the IPEM Environmental Sustainability Special Interest Group, we recognise that new entrants to our professions will be required to plan, carry out and evidence their own contributions furthering the organisation’s Net Zero aims. It is of utmost importance that we adequately prepare the future workforce to meet this challenge.

S-C2 Research Skills in Healthcare Science

• Trainees are expected to learn about how to carry out research but few graduate with the skills to start a research project, in particular applying for grants. I would like to see a module around starting a research project and applying for funding for all healthcare science specialisms.

S-C3 STP Project

• no feedback received

S-C4 Individual Professional Development

• no feedback received

Changes made

Module level changes

Programme level changes

• no changes made

Periodic review

This specialty curriculum requires significant change beyond the scope of an annual review.

Response – no

Rationale

Please provide an overview of the rationale for why the proposed changes are needed or why changes were not needed, with reference to stakeholder feedback.

Response

• Professional Foundations of Healthcare and Clinical Science
  • Changes to the academic indicative content have been included in response to changes in the 2024 edition of the HCPC SOPS which give greater prominence to these areas.
  • The OCE text has been changed to provide additional clarity on the purpose of the assessment for all specialties. There are frequent questions about this OCE, as highlighted by the feedback, particularly from non-patient facing specialties who feel they cannot complete this OCE.
  • The timing and content of the MSF was discussed in response to feedback. It was decided to make no change to the timing of the MSF in the training activities, as MSF access allows flexibility to link additional MSFs to other progression and HR activities, if beneficial. The MSF content was reviewed and updated.
  • Training activity 19 and supporting indicative content was updated to reflect the increasing importance of data management skills and awareness for all healthcare professionals.
  • Sustainability and environmental impact were discussed, additional content was included in the quality of practice and improvement indicative content.
  • The additional feedback received on the module was reviewed and discussed, it was agreed no change was required for training activities 6,12,14 and 15, and the guidance for CBDs found in the Work-based Assessment Standards was deemed to be sufficient.
• The remaining feedback received was reviewed and discussed; specialty specific content is not included in the core modules, for module S-C2, Research Skills, the content included on financing research was agreed to be appropriate for this stage of practice.

I confirm I have reviewed the Reflective Practice Guidance for ETAs and DTAs and have made any changes necessary.

Specialty Lead Editor signature: Jane Lynch, EMma Bowers, Namir Al Hasso, Lisa Ayers, Owen Driskell, Chanelle Peters
Date: 12 December 2025

Change control - completed by the school

Programme structure

Completed by: Chris Fisher
Date: 5 December 2025

Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) mapping

• M7 and M8 result in changes to the LO mapping to the HCPC SOPs, however all SOPs remain mapped.

Completed by: Chris Fisher
Date: 5 December 2025