Clinical Scientific Computing – 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.

Programme

• I feel that there is too much of a focus on elements like auditing documentation, which I understand see important, but this takes up time which could be spent on learning more general AI skills and training solutions.

Programme learning outcomes

• Software as a medical device should be specifically mentioned
• I had a previous trainee tell me they felt useless for a lot of their first year due to the way the first year rotations are written with lots of shadowing etc. Previously the first year had various sensible work-related modules. I have also learnt that different training centres are then finding various different ways to tackle this by adding in work activities outside of the curriculum. I think this will lead to increased variability of the training experience across centres which is something we should be trying to reduce. I appreciate there will always be variation because of the differing specialties of CSC teams across the country, but I think the first year rotations should be improved  include more structured activities relating tot he work of a CSC team like they did in the Bioinformatics in Physical Sciences curriculum.

S-CSC-R1 Introduction to Clinical Scientific Computing

Module aim

• This feedback will cover the whole curriculum as the form is broken, it does not let you add generic feedback and each time you want to comment on a new module you have to submit a whole new form. S-CSC-R1: I believe this field is difficult to deliver a rotational module in at a lot of trusts. These teams often vary greatly in their roles and capacity and in a lot of cases can mean their work isn’t particularly relevant to the role of a clinical engineer. For example, the team in our trust deals primarily with radiotherapy data management. I think that a more pointed module in patient-facing areas of clinical engineering would set DRMG department based trainees up better for 2nd and 3rd year and the more computer science based content could be present in DRMG rotational modules. This would also allow trainees to get more hands on in first year, with less placements outside of their area of expertise/experience. In general, I found the rotational modules to be too observational. I, and many of my cohort, have joined the STP as recent graduates and/or experienced engineers, and the curriculum in first year felt like a massive step backwards. Whether this could be improved by reducing the time spent “observing” or “shadowing” or through the inclusion of more “do-ing” training activities, I think this is an area of the curriculum that requires improvement as I came close to leaving the programme in this year. The generic inclusion of “reflect on this at two distinct time points” in all the activities seems redundant. Often I was splitting up reflections just to cover this point and I know that many of my cohort did only 1 time point. If this is important, the second reflection should be directed, e.g. after a month or upon X happening. As part of my first year, I completed a short rotation in a EBME workshop. This did not contribute massively to my training activities, however it did give me practical experience on the tools, responsibility and a sense of purpose. It was also a really good way of meeting people I would frequently work with in the future. Having spoke to previous cohorts, there used to be more competencies on this section and I think it would be useful to reintroduce these, especially given the practical experience that COVID took from a lot fo trainee’s university experience. Speciality Modules I think in general all speciality training activities and assessments are well structured. I have had help with finding clinical centres to do patient pathway TAs from my training officer, however I think, for future cohorts, it may be suitable to confirm the cooperation of a clinical department before taking on a trainee due to how many TAs are in this area.

Training activities

• 7 – The wording doesn’t make sense, I think there must be a typo or grammatical error as one can’t really ‘review the effect of evaluation on competing technologies’. I wonder if it should be something like ‘evaluate, and review the effect of, competing technologies and reflect on how this guides practice’. This is essentially how I have asked my trainee to complete this and how I have assessed them.
• 9 – Training Activity states: “Shadow a Clinical Engineer generating a clinical report, and reflect on their role”. For the purposes of this competency I think it could read “Shadow a Clinical Scientist…” instead of “Shadow a Clinical Engineer…”. I think this has been written with rehabilitation engineers in mind and not all centres have rehabilitation engineers. There are instances of clinical engineers working in physiological measurement placements but CSC trainees may not always be placed with these specialities to cover the patient facing competencies.

S-CSC-S1 Software Engineering 1

• no feedback received

S-CSC-S2 Clinical Connectivity and Clinical Infrastructure

• no feedback received

S-CSC-S3 Software Engineering 2

• no feedback received

S-CSC-S4 Data and Security

• 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: no rationale provided by Lead Editor

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

Specialty Lead Editor signature: Patrick Maw
Date: no date provided

Change control - completed by the school

Programme structure

Completed by: Chris Fisher
Date: 7 January 2026

Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) mapping

• no changes to learning outcomes, HCPC mapping maintained

Completed by: Chris Fisher
Date: 7 January 2026