Principles for the management of programmes / rotations

The quality management process within the Scotland Deanery is structured to identify any posts which are offering high quality training opportunities in order that good practice can be shared as well as identifying posts which fail to achieve the GMC standards expected and to ensure remedial action is taken to improve individual posts.

It is acknowledged that some training rotation posts are more suitable for trainees at varying stages of their career. These will be known to the Programme Director and will influence the decisions made for individual trainee placements.

The following broad principles should be considered when detailed planning of rotations occurs:

1) Training rotations should be designed to ensure that during the course of the planned rotation, trainees are exposed to all the necessary experiences to achieve curriculum competencies and sign off for CCT, core training or foundation competencies.

2) Design of the rotation should meet the requirements of individual trainees taking into consideration: -

• Achieving educational competencies including appropriate skills, level of training, knowledge and attributes.
• Achieving specific objectives e.g. focused training. This may include out of programme activities for training, but only if such training is not available within the home region and with due consideration to the impact on Health Board allocations.
• Achieving a balanced training programme incorporating units with varying workloads.
• Ensuring specific training opportunities available in a limited number of centres are available to the maximum number of trainees.

3) To ensure a Deanery-wide successful educational culture, it is essential that all Boards where trainees are placed are encouraged and supported in developing appropriate training posts. It is possible that some Health Boards may only have the educational opportunities to support trainees at specific stages of their training and these should be clearly identified and shared with the Health Boards. There should be evidence that Health Boards and individual departments have sufficient educational infrastructure (resources, educational supervisors etc) to meet their training obligations.   High quality placements will be considered as high priority when allocating trainees. With this limitation on rotational management an attempt should be made when planning rotations to achieve the following:

• When a significant number of vacancies occur on a rotation attempts should be made to allocate these as equitably as possible between Health Boards so there is an appropriate share of trainees. This does not however mean reallocation when vacancies occur after the allocation is agreed.
• PD has responsibility to agree the number and grade of posts for national recruitment and regional LAT appointments.
• If opportunities for specific educational experience do not limit flexibility all Health Boards on the rotation should have an appropriate share of both senior and junior trainees.
• Trainees in a period of grace are post-CCT and, although still in a training post, should not have their educational needs considered as a priority over trainees who are still achieving CCT competencies. Requests for specific placements can only be considered after accommodating the educational needs of other trainees and taking into account the distribution of trainees across the programme.

Programme Directors should regularly consult with the regional Specialty or Foundation Associate Postgraduate Dean or Assistant GP Director for any issues regarding delivery of training and trainee concerns. The regional Postgraduate Dean or GP Director has overall responsibility.  For those Programme Directors managing a multi-region or national programme, there is a national specialty Associate Postgraduate Dean with the Lead Dean Director for the STB taking overall responsibility.

This page was last updated on: 15.06.2018 at 10.58