AHCS, NSHCS, HEE, LETB, IPEM, STP, PTP, HSST…… A big alphabetical soup or acronyms that we need to know about?

Here’s the glossary

AHCS - Academy of Healthcare Scientists (http://www.ahcs.ac.uk) – An umbrella organisation that endeavours to ‘look after’ all healthcare scientists, providing a membership subscription service, manage the healthcare scientist and technology registers, organise meetings etc.

NSHCS – National school of healthcare science (http://www.nshcs.org.uk ) – A virtual school that produces a national curriculum for both PTP, STP and HSST training (see below for definitions). Is responsible for organising assessment of training and administration of examinations and recruitment into these programmes.

HEE - Health Education England (http://www.hee.nhs.uk). Part of the NHS, the HEE is responsible in defining how education and training will be delivered specifically for the NHS workforce. NB Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs), are statutory committees of HEE.

IPEM – Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (http://www.ipem.ac.uk) – A charity organisation and professional body that invites membership from Physicists and Engineers working in the medical sciences or healthcare. Endeavours to provide support to its members in the form of scientific conferences, information networks and to provide information to the public about all matters to do with physics and engineering in medicine.

PTP – practitioner training programme. (http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/healthcare-science/training/nhs-practitioner-training-programme-(ptp)/)

STP – Scientist training programme (http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/healthcare-science/training/nhs-scientist-training-programme-(stp)/).

HSST – Higher specialist scientist training programme (http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/healthcare-science/training/nhs-higher-specialist-scientific-training-(hsst)/).

How do they all fit together?

One could argue that the creation of the AHCS is in direct competition to the IPEM in that it is an entity that purports to be a professional body and does all the things that we want to do but for ALL healthcare scientists ~ 55K at last count against our ~5K of physicists and engineers. But then one could also argue we already have that situation with the Institute of Physics (IOP) and yet we still exist and most of us are happy to distinguish ourselves from the general physics community in much the same way I’m sure that we would distinguish ourselves from the majority of healthcare scientists. It’s also worth a mention that the IPEM already have representation in both these organisations. 3 IPEM trustees sit on the Medical Physics Group at the IOP and the President sits on the council of the AHCS alongside ~ 40 other healthcare science professions who it has to be said are quite glad to be able to ally themselves to a larger and possibly better provider of community resources than they are. I think that it is important to note at this point that it is the AHCS that have been commissioned by the HEE to administrate the statutory register for healthcare science professions.

Similarly the NSHCS could also be seen as a direct competitor to the IPEM, and the side that won the fight!! Most of us know that about 5 years ago the IPEM training underwent a radical change, namely that it was subsumed into the NSHCS training programme for all healthcare scientists in the NHS as part of the Modernising Scientific Careers commissioned by the Dept. of Health (DOH). I will not be providing a history lesson here. Much has already been said and ranted about the IPEM losing status as a well respected provider of an already thorough training scheme but what I do think worth ranting about now is in fact that rather than being shut out, members of the IPEM are still very much involved in the design and delivery of the syllabus for the physics and engineering streams of PTP and STP. It has far from slipped from our fingers. However, while members have tried to provide a good solid content to the syllabus we would not want the IPEM to be identified with the slightly chaotic administration of the programmes. But it’s early days and I’m sure that after another couple of rounds of trainees it will feel more robust. Which brings me to the HSST. I guess the biggest criticisms that members of IPEM have hurled at the NSHCS is the speed at which things have been done, often times  before resources are ready.  The HSST programme is no exception. Launched this year with the first interviews to take place on Mon July 14^th the delivery of academic content still has not been confirmed and I suspect that many hospital employers may not even know about it yet, or at least understood their role in it.  Again I want to shout out that members of IPEM have been closely involved in the development of the HSST programme. We haven’t always got we want but we have made it better than it would’ve been had we not been involved. I believe this is exciting (may be a little scary) times for the profession and by proxy for the IPEM.  The IPEM membership should take this environment of radical change and use it’s momentum to initiate change in the way we perceive and use IPEM resources.  Put yourself in Sue Hill’s shoes – Modernising Physics and Engineering Careers – what would you turn on its head?

Being more engaged with Parliament.

One of the reasons I wanted to take on the VP external relations role was because I’ve always felt strongly that scientists shouldn’t be such wallflowers when a largely non science parliament makes policy decisions regarding science, technology and engineering….and don’t get me started about statistics…..

So I was quite excited to learn that the IPEM has representation at the Lords Parliamentary Science and Technology committee.  I wrote about this in blog No.4.  Last week Elspeth Bartlett (IPEM:Communications Officer) and I went along to a workshop organised by the Science Council and the Lords Science and Technology committee about engaging with parliament.

The workshop itself was the first one they had done and possibly a little mis-aimed at times but we did learn more about how the information makes its way into the Lords and then in to the Commons and finally hopefully into law. Click here to find out more.  http://www.parliament.uk/hlscience

The upshot of the afternoon was: If you feel really strongly about anything, you can write directly to the committee itself and petition them about a particular topic.

For example for those of you who follow Ben Goldacre’s blog or on twitter you will know that he feels very strongly about all the unpublished data that drug companies hold. He petitioned the committee and gave his evidence, along with others, last year

Ben Goldacre

http://www.badscience.net/2013/04/my-evidence-to-the-uk-parliamentary-select-committee-inquiry-into-missing-trial-data/

The published report can be downloaded here http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/science-technology/Clinical%20trials%20combined.pdf

Obviously, for the biggest impact we would want a topic to come from the IPEM HQ! May be we should ask the office to do a simple poll to ask members what they think IPEM should be petitioning this committee about. 

A number of firsts: My first trustee meeting, my first communications committee meeting and my first visit to the IPEM offices.

I can gladly report there is definitely a refreshingly cool breeze of change in the air. First hinted at in past President’s Dr Peter Jarrit’s scope editorial Vol 21 (1) March 2012 and now in mid transition as described by our dynamic CEO, Rosemary Cooke CBE in the last issue of SCOPE.

At the trustees meeting we discussed the overall strategy of the IPEM and money of course.  As current President Dr Steve Keevil discusses in the first issue of SCOPE this year, one of the biggest strategic changes taking place within IPEM is the devolving of decision making down to the committees and councils so that they don't have to wait for the trustees to decide on operational matters better decided by the committees themselves. We discussed at great length the results of the members’ survey. If you haven’t read over it already I recommend that you do (http://www.ipem.ac.uk/Members.aspx).  Some of the comments are both amusing and damming! Some good ones too.

At the end of the trustees meeting day I felt that I had learned more about how the IPEM works since I joined back in 1993 (gosh has it really been 20 years!!!). I had no idea the IPEM was doing so much.  I feel a little guilty that I had been dismissive of the organisation for so long.  Yes, it’s true, even though I had been a member of the MR-SIG since 2008 and now VP I had never really bothered to find out.  It’s a 2 way process of course. On the one hand we don't make it easy to find out stuff that’s going on. But it’s also up to us to at least point ourselves in the right direction to get the info. The website is drastically improving but it’s still difficult to navigate. The annual report is a good source of info but a bit dry to read. The newsletter is excellent but like a lot of newsletters I get from other organisations and journals it gets lost amongst the many emails I get.  For more info on Who’s Who click here http://www.ipem.ac.uk/Members/CommitteesGroups.aspx It's a lot of clicks and it doesn't look pretty but we’re all there.

The Communications Committee meeting or Comms Comm as it’s ‘affectionately’ called, took place a few days later in the IPEM offices in York. Again I’m embarrassed to say that I was kind of hoping that the idea floated (not very seriously) of moving the HQ to London would be accepted but having visited York, I take it back. It’s a charming place and actually from London takes less than 2hrs if you get the right train. Oh and they’ve managed to source CLUB biscuits (showing my age again :/) so they’re guaranteed to get me back.  It was a long day but very energising. It’s been a long time coming but I really think that this current configuration of the Comms Comm is going to bring the IPEM into the 21^st century. Marc Miquel is chair, he was brilliant as editor in the progression and guiding of SCOPE into the format we know and love now and he will be brilliant at Charing this committee too. Tenacity with a capital T. You can find the other members at the link above. I won’t steal their thunder but we’re hoping to launch a really exciting campaign this year to raise the profile of physics and engineering in healthcare, inspired in part by some of the answers we got from the member survey so do go and read it (http://www.ipem.ac.uk/Members.aspx.)  

Round table meeting with Lord AdonisOrganised at the Science Council offices, 9th jan 2014

Many professional bodies were invited: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Royal Society of Chemistry, Geological society, Cardiology Science and Technology, Society of Biology, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining,  Inst of physics, Inst of Environmental Sciences, Society for General Microbiology, Royal Astronomical Society, British Psychological Society, inst of Chemical Engineers, Association for Clinical Biochemistry, Chartered inst for IT and Inst of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology.

Preamble to the meeting:  Over the next few months, Lord Adonis will be touring the country to hear the views of local businesses, colleges and universities and professional bodies taking into account the diverse challenges to innovation and growth faced by the different regions. The report will also explore whether the insufficient provision of capital at the local level has constrained the growth of innovation clusters across the country, and whether a more localised approach to financing may be beneficial. He had already had 14 previous meetings around the country.

Lord Adonis asked us to think about the following three items before attending the meeting. He had asked similar things at each of the other meetings.

·       Gearing our education and training systems to make sure they meet the needs of employers and employees and help deliver a revolution to support the jobs of the future.

·       Providing SMEs (small to medium enterprise) with improved access to finance as well as support to grow more quickly and export.

·       Delivering polices in partnership with businesses and representative bodies at an appropriate national, regional or local level to drive this radical agenda for growth forward.

Lord Adonis began the meeting by explaining why he wanted to talk to us and what his thoughts were so far and drew our attention to the Lord Heseltine review – no stone unturned. Then asked us to focus on a couple of ideas one of which was that he would like to look at introducing apprenticeships. This he said was because he kept hearing the same thing that there was a lack of technically trained personnel.

The group highlighted a number of points in answer to this: No money for this type of on the job training · need to introduce incentives (monetary) for apprenticeships · put vocational training · and BTEC diplomas in the school league tables · the consequences of not doing this is that we have a small and overqualified scientific work force and need to go overseas to employ technicians · careers advice centres should be given a lot more information about technicians jobs that need only basic A’level or BTEC diplomas · the old chestnut of lack of science teachers.

The second point was could or should universities or professional bodies lead on the regional incentives* with working with small business?

General consensus was that it would be unreasonable to load this responsibility all on the universities, again the matter of incentives was discussed · It was felt that businesses often don’t know how to approach universities, and find the interaction all a bit high level and academic. We need better go betweens, is there a role here for the professional societies? · to aid in the communication between small businesses and universities, there should be a reinstatement of the RDAs.

*I couldn’t help but mention that we had a pretty good regional thing going on with our training scheme until the DoH decided to make it national and gave accreditation to only 3 universities in England.

But we kept coming back to education: Some sound bites were

“how do we make it ok to be a technician without a university degree”. 

“Schools want to send everyone to uni, parents want to send their kids to uni”, “everyone thinks scientists are bods who get phds and do weird science, so that if you enjoy science but don’t want to go to uni there’s no alternative”.
"missing skills are the biggest impediment to growth"
"the massive job of invention not just reinvention because employers don't take o apprenticeships at all"

Please feel free to comment below on any of the points above.