Clinical Immunology – 2025 review results

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-CI-R1 Introduction to Clinical Immunology

Training activities

• 1 – Also covers activity 8 (operational meeting). MDT and operational meetings are not necessarily activities that a trainee would normally see especially on a rotation in a different department to their own. We don’t actually have a specific immunology MDT or an operational meeting so these are not very relevant to their training. This could be covered by one competency – either looking at a quality meeting, lab meeting, or anything else in a similar vein. Trying to cover these has been quite difficult for our trainees in the past.
• 2 – The TA task was to shadow a clinical scientist in Immunology. The lab I completed my rotation in did not have any clinical scientists, I completed the training activity using the role of a senior BMS and focused on the differences/similarities between the roles but I felt that this made it difficult for members of staff in the Immunology lab to understand what I was looking for to complete my training activity.

S-CI-S1 Immunodeficiency and Immunotherapeutics

• no feedback received

S-CI-S2 Autoimmunity

• no feedback received

S-CI-S3 Allergy

• no feedback received

S-CI-S4 Haematological Oncology

Module aim

• In hindsight, spending an equivalent volume of time on haematological malignancies, compared to allergy and autoimmunity, now seems excessive. Many trainees come into teaching stating they do not have any exposure to HM, and that this work is largely focused in HODS. I’d suggest reducing the HM content to 5 credits (from 10) and combining it into a 15-credit unit with allergy (currently 10 credits). This would allow an concomitant increase in the autoimmunity unit to 15 credits, which is much broader in scope than the other 2 Year 3 modules.

Academic indicative content

• We would reduce the content to focus on: myeloma, CLL, acute leukaemias. Relevant diagnostics, focusing on identification of malignant immune cells in peripheral blood. WHO classification. Function of a HODS, and how immunology can contribute. We’d remove broader and less relevant content to Day 1 clinical scientists, including lymphomas, MPNs, MDS, bone marrow failure syndromes.

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 to feedback to training activities in S-CI-R1 Introduction to Clinical Immunology

• Feedback TA1 and TA8 – Also covers activity 8 (operational meeting). MDT and operational meetings are not necessarily activities that a trainee would normally see especially on a rotation in a different department to their own. We don’t actually have a specific immunology MDT or an operational meeting so these are not very relevant to their training. This could be covered by one competency – either looking at a quality meeting, lab meeting, or anything else in a similar vein. Trying to cover these has been quite difficult for our trainees in the past.
• Response – For training activity 1 (Attend an immunology multidisciplinary team meeting, and reflect on the meeting) as they are training to be Clinical Scientists it is important for the trainee to have exposure to the clinical aspects of the role and understand the intergration of the laboratory and the clinical team. There are comparable training activities to this in both the Haematology and Biochemistry first year rotational modules and these training activities are found valuable by the trainees. For training activity 8 (Attend an operational meeting for immunology, and reflect on the meeting) in the considerations section for this training activity examples of what is considered an “operational meeting” have been given and these include quality meeting, management meeting, team meeting. At least one of these should be available in an Immunology department for a trainee to observe. Operational and clinical meetings/MDTs are very different in focus and are providing training on different aspects of the role of a Clinical Scientist. The STP scheme is training scientists to be senior members of laboratory staff and they need exposure to that level of training. It is a valuable experience to see how other disciplines/labs work at this level whilst on rotation.

It is the responsibility of the training centres when seeking accreditation to ensure they are able to provide suitable training across all the curriculum. If a training centre has gaps in what they can provide they should seek support and agreement for provision of that training from another center.

• Feedback TA2 – The TA task was to shadow a clinical scientist in Immunology. The lab I completed my rotation in did not have any clinical scientists, I completed the training activity using the role of a senior BMS and focused on the differences/similarities between the roles but I felt that this made it difficult for members of staff in the Immunology lab to understand what I was looking for to complete my training activity.
• Response – As this is a training scheme to train Clinical Scientists it is important that the training provided includes qualified Clinical Scientists in its delivery. It is important to have understanding of what clinical scientists in other related specialties do, as these will be your colleagues once you are qualitifed. The lack of a Clinical Scientist in Immunology during training rotations is a training centre accrediation issue, not a curriculum issue.

Response to feedback to training activities in S-CI-S4 Haematological Oncology

• Feed back about Module Aim – In hindsight, spending an equivalent volume of time on haematological malignancies, compared to allergy and autoimmunity, now seems excessive. Many trainees come into teaching stating they do not have any exposure to HM, and that this work is largely focused in HODS. I’d suggest reducing the HM content to 5 credits (from 10) and combining it into a 15-credit unit with allergy (currently 10 credits). This would allow an concomitant increase in the autoimmunity unit to 15 credits, which is much broader in scope than the other 2 Year 3 modules.
• Feedback about Academic Indicative Content – We would reduce the content to focus on: myeloma, CLL, acute leukaemias. Relevant diagnostics, focusing on identification of malignant immune cells in peripheral blood. WHO classification. Function of a HODS, and how immunology can contribute. We’d remove broader and less relevant content to Day 1 clinical scientists, including lymphomas, MPNs, MDS, bone marrow failure syndromes.
• Response – Agree with this feedback, there is unnecessary academic content in the haematological malignancy module that does not reflect the practice of an Immunology Clinical Scientist. Therefore, the conditions not seen by an Immunology lab will be removed from the academic indicative content. Given it is the Autoimmunity module that would benefit from more academic time, the haematological malignancy module will be merged with the Autoimmunity module to create a 20 credit module. No changes to the work based assessments are required for either module.

I have checked and amended the DTA reflective practice guidance. There are too many things wrong with the ETA guidance for me to check and change. In my opinion ion its current form it is not useful. I have emailed about this.

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

Specialty Lead Editor signature: Elizabeth Bateman
Date: 4 January 2026

Change control - completed by the school

Programme structure

Completed by: Chris Fisher
Date: 6 January 2026