The School and regional NHS England office should be notified of any leave of absences, which could have a potential impact on funding. This is the responsibility of the training officer who must pass the relevant information on to the School and Commissioners. For example, maternity, paternity or adoption leave. Absence or a series of absences that will impact on a trainees’ salary (6 weeks absence or more). Wellbeing concerns that will significantly impact on a trainee’s progress, and further advice and support is needed.
Trainees should ensure personal records are up-to-date with the employing Trust, on their e-portfolio and with the School.
A trainee must notify their employer if off sick.
A trainee must always initially speak to their training officer about any problems with training. The School’s Training Programme Directors will support training officers if they need further advice.
The London Healthcare Science Trainee Network have produced a set of flowcharts advising trainee’s what to do in certain situations. For example, if a trainee is having problems with their training.
We understand that sometimes things can impact on your experience of the programme and you may feel you don’t want to continue. Always talk to your training officer or other colleagues at work and find out what support is available as soon as possible. If you feel you are not receiving the support you need, contact the School for further advice.
The regional education and training offices fund each training post within their area. If a trainee needs to move within the region covered and the Trust is able to accommodate them, the funding would have to be transferred by the regional office to the new post. However a transfer outside of the regional education and training office area is more difficult.
No, a trainee cannot change specialties once they have started the programme. When you accept the offer of a place you are agreeing to undertake training in that specialty, at a specific location for the duration of the programme. The only exceptions are for trainees recruited to Medical Physics – Undefined as the employer does not require the specialty to be defined until the end of the rotational phase.
As employees you are entitled to request and take study leave in accordance with local employment policies, however this should only be applicable to study that is not directly attributable to the training programme.
We advise that employers facilitate a 80:20 split (or 1 day per week if full time) between routine workplace commitments and academic studies. 20% of the trainee’s time must be protected for private study, including university work, reflective writing, reading and portfolio completion. This applies throughout the programme, regardless of whether the trainee is in university term time.
Trainees should contact the School to discuss difficulties in securing protected time for training as employers not facilitating this, risk losing their accredited status as a training centre.
We would not actively encourage trainees to participate continuously in weekend/out of hours working, however good experience may be gained from out of hours work. Clearly it would be expected that you are undertaking appropriate work that would not require close supervision. Our concern would be the potential impact this might have on your training during the remainder of the working week.
It is usually down to local negotiation between the employer, commissioner and University in terms of agreeing a management plan and should be managed in accordance with local terms and conditions of employment.
The School does ask to be kept informed so we know when the trainee is due to complete/rotate and the approach will vary depending on the individual circumstances and timing it occurs during their training.
We would be happy to advise on a plan once drafted in terms of how that might impact on training etc and based on our wider knowledge of other experiences make recommendations on how you might manage.
There may be conscientious objection to the acquisition of certain skills within certain elements of the curriculum. This does not mean that meeting the knowledge criteria is not required. Skills targets not attempted for these reasons should be clearly recorded in the e-portfolio and signed off by a trainer.
Determining eligibility under the Widening Access Training (WAT) scheme is the responsibility of the trust which employs you. You should contact your HR department directly as only they can establish whether you are eligible and arrange a refund via their payroll system if you are. You can find more information on the WAT scheme on the Gov.uk website and from NHS Employers.
Yes, if departments are able to support the completion of training there should be no problem.
It is worth speaking to the local education office about the possibility of protecting the trainee’s training budget for the last few months to ensure that they are employed by you at the end of the training period. This may not always be possible but certainly worth exploring with your local commissioner.
The School would suggest caution for the trainee as it is quite challenging to swap from a pure training role to one that may have different competing demands. However, other departments in this position have been able to strike a sensible workable balance where necessary.
The trainee would need to submit a transfer request form and relevant evidence detailed in the transfer policy. Click this link to access the policy in the publications section of the website.