Meeting Notes 18th September 2024

MINUTES & ACTIONS

Agenda Point

Agenda Item

Brief Description

1

Welcome and Apologies 

AC welcomed all to the meeting and introductions were made.

LN welcomed

Apologies received from

Adam Revill     TSDHT

Trudy Eddy     RCHT

Orrin Mc Aleer F1 Rep

Sam Meyer      SDHT

Ray Sheridan  RDUH E

Anjali Mehta    F2 Rep

Olivia Fairhurst F1 Rep

Sarah Rawlinson Education Lead

Emily Drew UHP

Jeremy White TSDHT

2

Previous minutes / matters arising / actions

3

ST6/ST7 Clinical Supervisor Project

Please refer to the following email attachments:

• dCS Letter
• FY2 ES Letter
• FY2 Opt out Letter
• FY2 Opt in Letter
• General Information Letter for DME, TPD, MEM, HoS
• Letter to Registrars
• Letter to FP TPDs and MEMs
• PGDiT CS own ES
• PGDiT CS for FY2s Frequently asked Questions
• CS Recruitment Poster
• CS Recruitment Poster Southwest
• Proposed Timeline for PGDiT CS for FY2 Programme
• PGDiT CS Support Slide for distribution
• FP TPDs Presentation

HC introduced the committee members to the Clinical Supervisor Project confirming it was looking to train ST7 and ST8 doctors as Clinical Supervisors for Foundation Doctors. The intention is to adapt to the expansion in numbers of Foundation Doctors and address the need to support current supervisors in the future.

Comments were received around the following:

• Barriers for Foundation Doctors and resources
• Correlations of success vs career aspirations of F2 doctors
• Statistics of success taken from ARCP outcomes
• Potential issues of displacement and rotation planning
• Disappointment from trusts who don’t take ST5+ trainees who will be unable to partake in this project.

JT confirmed Foundation Doctors will need to do the half day Clinical Supervisors training as a minimum to get onto the project but advised it is worth completing the full day course so ST7/8 doctors are able to be either a Clinical Supervisor or Educational Supervisor as soon as they CCT if they wish.

JT informed the committee that Geoff Smith is looking at avenues to enable trusts to take advantage of the project who do not have an allocation of senior trainee doctors.

HC is available to support with this pilot and can be contacted at Hugo.cohen@doctors.org.uk

4

Trainee rep Matters

AC welcomed the following Foundation Doctor Representatives to the Peninsula Foundation School Board Meeting:

Orrin Mc Aleer - Plymouth F1
Olivia Fairhurst- Cornwall F1
Anjali Mehta- Torbay & South Devon F2
Hamayal Zafar- North Devon F2

No updates to report due to reps being new in role.

5

Foundation School Directors

Psychiatry Placement Descriptions and Minimum Supervision levels

• A query was raised regarding the level of the staff who can supervise Foundation Doctors Psychiatry placements. It has been agreed at the Psychiatry meeting to hold an annual meeting to discuss concerns and review Psychiatry posts.
• Minimum supervision standards for F1 and F2s have been agreed and an undertaking has been given to not expand the number of F1 Psychiatry posts any future expansion will be at F2 only.
• AC took the committee through the Supervision Guidance created by CVH and AC (attached).
• SM confirmed that moving forward, Psychiatry Posts will be advertised as General Psychiatry with the location TBC to avoid difficult conversations currently being experienced with changes of location.
• SM confirmed the website has updated to inform FDs that community posts will be community based and travel between sites will be required.

Foundation Fellows Appointment

2x Foundation Fellows have been appointed for the Southwest to facilitate the Enhance programme, working with the trusts to further embed the Enhance offer in trusts.  Also, they will be asked to look at ways to improve the IMG experience. 

1. Peninsula: Joe Kempton- Obstetrics & Gynaecology
2. Severn: Claire Edwin- General Practice

The Foundation Fellows will be working 1x day per week for the Foundation School starting October 2024 and will provide updates to the committee.

Placeholder Welfare

AC thanked everyone involved in looking after placeholders and finding them at such short notice.

AC and SM felt the national process was unsatisfactory from a management perspective- intentions to hold regular webinars and engagement sessions with placeholders were obstructed by restrictions of the general election- and AC is keen to get feedback from the placeholders on the process, with suggestions of what could be done differently to improve the experience.

Discussions were had around how this could be implemented either regionally or by trust, with suggestions made about offering accommodation for the first month or agreeing annual leave around a key holiday.

Feedback from several trusts agreed that the process for placeholders was unsatisfactory and they had taken the initiative to reach out and provide that personal link to their placeholders, which was appreciated.

The preliminary findings from the F1 Induction survey showed minimal differences in anxiety on a national level between F1 doctors and F1 placeholder doctors.

SFP programmes

Changes are being made to the recruitment process for Specialist Foundation Programmes. Some posts have been allocated for the priority programme with others kept separate.

There has been significant backlash from Academics so a compromise has been agreed between the MSC and the UKFPO 2 x Research programmes will be recruited to by the Medical Schools themselves as follows:

1x post through Exeter University

1x post through Plymouth University

The expectation is that Exeter and Plymouth University with liaise with Bristol University and the SFP posts will be available in a separate group for candidates to rank.

Enhance/fellows

The South West Foundation schools have been awarded a one- off payment for the year to go towards improving uptake and facilitating the Enhance programme.

There is a broad remit regarding how the money is spent as is up to each individual trust to decide how to utilise this money, however, the expectation is that the Foundation school will be held accountable as to how it is delivered.

Each trust will be given funding through the DMEs to appoint Enhance champions (could be existing TPDs, ESs or senior trainees) to link with the Foundation Fellows and increase the uptake of the Enhance programme.

There is an expectation that Enhance will become embedded in the curriculum in the next few years so the funding will be a one- off payment to help this integration.

New post updates

ACTION: HZ to speak to F1s for any informal feedback on the placeholder experience

6

Study Leave

The study leave guidance is being modified and AC hopes to work with the Study Leave team to create guidance better suited to Foundation doctors and include flow charts for ESs and admin teams to better understand what is funded for F1s and F2s.

This is important to clarify as F1s do not have a study budget they can draw from, and a comprehensive flow chart will make things much easier.

Comments were received about having this incorporated into Horus however the platform is Foundation specific and for capturing educational evidence only.

The TIS team have confirmed the intention to add a Study Leave component to the platform however there is no date or timeline for this as yet.

7

Education

No update

8

General Practice

No update

9

Psychiatry

No update

10

Recruitment

Next years’ process has already started and SM shared the following statistics from last year’s recruitment:

• All 5x SFP posts filled.
• 9/10 FPP posts filled. 1x unfilled went into Foundation Programme pot
• 302 applicants allocated to Peninsula Foundation school in March 2024
• 266 programmes available, so had 36 applicants initially placed in placeholder programmes.
• SM asked for 30 placeholder programmes across trusts and increased capacity to 296 programmes.
• Had 2x LTFT applicants who were put into a job share that increased overall capacity to 297 programmes.
• 7x placeholder applicants withdrew with a further 11 withdrawals, the last of which was on 23^rd July 2024, the day before Induction

SM shared the statistics of previous years applicant numbers and withdrawals which were used to identify allocation for 2024 / 2025 intake. The PIA influenced how the Peninsula was ranked and the withdrawal rates, and there is an expectation of changes of ranking behaviours due to an understanding of this new process.

Discussions were had regarding expectations for recruitment this year, allocations, and notification of post allocation timelines.

All schools except London will be expected to create additional posts and a message was sent back to national that it is difficult to identify a number of additional posts to request without first knowing the number of allocated posts.
SM confirmed there is no additional money beyond the tariff for this cohort.

11

AOB

Academic ST2 Block

SM asked trusts how their academic doctors take their SDT time.

Discussions were had around how individual trusts were managing this and which role (Academic of clinical) the self- development aspect should be done in. CVH felt it should be a 60/40 split and self-development to be done pro- rata between the roles.

Action: Trusts to feed back to Academic FDs that self- development should be done pro-rata between both roles with a 60 / 40 split.

Maxcourse

50% of F2s registered on Maxcourse and TPDs were asked to push F2s to sign up.

Terminology

The terminology for Doctors in Training has been officially changed and they should now be referred to as Resident Doctors. 

11

Future Meeting Dates

Agenda Item

Action

FSC Member

By When

2

All trusts to provide SM with local rep information to share with SFC reps

All Trusts

Next Meeting

All trusts to return the JD templates to SM ASAP

All Trusts

ASAP

All teams who have not yet informed the school of their trust IMG lead to update AC & SM

Outstanding Teams

Next Meeting

5

HZ to speak to F1s for any informal feedback on their placeholder experience.  SM to provide Reps with a list of new for 2024 posts

HZ

Next Meeting

11

Trusts to feed back to Academic FDs that self- development should be done pro-rata between both roles with a 60 / 40 split.

All Trusts

Next Meeting