Tools & Resources

Modernising Scientific Careers: The Cardiac Scientist Role and its Impact within the NHS

Within most NHS hospitals the healthcare science workforce is likely to be the second largest workforce responsible for delivering diagnostic investigation and interventions. Yet their existence is still largely hidden, not only from their own individual employers, but also from the general public. The skills possessed by this workforce are critical in ensuring that the NHS is able to recover from the current financial pressures and also to deliver robust high quality services across patient pathways from primary, through to secondary and tertiary care.

Developing a Specialist Respiratory Placement for Student Nurses

East Lancashire NHS Trust’s Integrated Respiratory Service (IRS) has developed a specialist ten to twelve week placement for student nurses, which allows students to gain clinical experience in a specialist nursing role, rather than within a traditional ward or outpatient setting.Trainees gain an understanding of the specialist respiratory nursing role as well how that role works alongside other members of the multi-disciplinary team.

Advancing Clinical Practice

Health Education Yorkshire and the Humber (HEYH) is making significant investment in the recruitment and training of 200 Advanced Practitioners (APs) recruited over the next three years, to be deployed throughout the region to maximise staff potential and help reduce reliance on medical staff. Advanced Practioner Framework To ensure sustainability for the initiative, HEYH are developing a multidisciplinary AP Framework to provide system-wide recognition of these roles, aid transferability between organisations, and support diffusion of best practice.

Trust pioneers new apprenticeship scheme

Healthcare Science Apprenticeships The scheme created by Health Education Yorkshire and the Humber to develop a new training route for Bands 2 - 4 in Healthcare Science. Apprentice medical laboratory assistants, Rachel Taylor and Nathan Baldwin, work for laboratory medicine while Amy Bond and Amy Martin have been assigned to both Neurophysiology and Cardio-Respiratory in a brand new apprenticeship role.

Shared Values: A Value Based Training Practice programme for Health Care Assistants and Support Workers

The recent reports of both Francis (2013) and Cavendish (2013) set out a requirement to develop training and educational pathways for all health care assistants and support staff. A code of conduct for support staff has also been developed by Skills for Health and Skills for Care (March 2013) and the Government have included support staff development as one of 11 national priority projects in their mandate to Health Education England (DOH 2013) and Talent to Care (2013).Support workers make up around a third of the caring workforce and often spend more time with service users than nurses.

Modernising Scientific Careers: Clinical Scientist Training delivered via the Scientist Training Programme (STP)

The Modernising Scientific Careers (MSC) programme will ensure we have a healthcare science workforce which has the skills, knowledge and flexibility to embrace these technological and scientific advances for the benefit of NHS service users. This article, which is the third in a series of MSC hot topics, focuses on the clinical scientist training delivered via the Scientist Training Programme (STP)which, following a pilot in 2010, was rolled out nationally in 2011. 

Effective Management Medical Rotas using a Rota Co-ordination Team

The Rota Co-ordination function was devised to provide effective management of Medical rotas using a rota co-ordination team to minimise costs and maximise service. Through centrally managing the day to day rostering of Junior Doctors, efficiencies could be achieved in locum spend and optimising the cover levels with the available staff. Monioring the cost savings made by the rota team and have identified for the period April 2012 to 2013 a total of £581,000 savings across the seven directorates.

Pages