Integrating medical and education teams for doctors in training

Best Practice: Intergrating the medical and education teams to create a more efficient working environment for doctors in training with better support.

Who did it: Claire Roberts, Medical Workforce and Education Centre Manager from Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Dr A P Choules, Postgraduate Clinical Tutor

Service and training are closely linked and yet the support functions co-ordinating employment and education for doctors in training are often in geographically different areas of the hospital and operate separately.  This can lead to duplication of work and inefficiencies.

In November 2009, the medical staffing manager was appointed to the post of medical workforce and education centre manager to manage both functions with the primary aim of creating a unified medical workforce team.  A formal consultation and organisational change took place and a new team was created in June 2010 based in the Education Centre. 

Team integration, development of new roles and directorate teams has resulted in an improved workplace experience for our trainees whilst developing and streamlining administration systems to improve services from recruitment through to employment and training.  By enhancing our service provision we are able to provide:

  • a single point of contact for all doctor in training queries in relation to training and employment
  • a co-ordinated approach to management of sickness absence and doctors in difficulty
  • an education co-ordinator role to support co-ordination of induction, appraisal, mandatory training and education including management of e-portfolio, teaching programmes, study leave and taster sessions
  • a rota co-ordinator role leading to a more co-ordinated approach to the management of medicine rotas including intranet publication, co-ordination of teaching sessions, development of an online leave request system, early distribution of rotas and improved access/reporting for teaching attendance.

We are now able to provide cross cover over the directorate offices. Feedback from trainees has been positive and further synergies, ideas and team strengths have started to emerge resulting in further improvements by creating:

  • a dedicated role to co-ordinate foundation trainees from appointment to validation
  • single points of contact for GP and CMT co-ordination including the creation of a local faculty group to review and improve training provision and onsite OSCEs
  • movement to a centralised reception booking system to allow easier access to increase utilisation of rooms within the centre for educational training purposes
  • creation of systems to co-ordinate responses and formulate and manage action plans in response to visits and educational assessment tools such as the JEST and GMC survey
  • an informal mentoring system for FY1
  • formal reporting mechanisms for engagement of wider stakeholders such as escalation of issues through appropriate boards and forums through development of board papers.

Ongoing developments include development of an appraisal and revalidation website, revision of our intranet site to support training, increasing utilisation of the skills lab for simulation training, electronic monitoring of teaching attendance and development of an external internet link to promote the centre.

For further information contact Claire Roberts, Medical Workforce and Education Centre Manager at claire.roberts@burtonft.nhs.uk

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