The Society for Cardiological Science and Technology

Education Committee

Chairman's Report 2006

I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that your Education Committee has been very busy since our last Annual General Meeting.  The workload continues to increase and I'm immensely grateful to all members of the Committee for their dedication and commitment to the Society's work in this area.

Unfortunately there is clear evidence of significant pressure from individual Trusts to significantly restrict the amount of time staff can contribute to professional body activity.  As a consequence there has been a noticeable drop in attendance at Education Committee meetings.  Nevertheless the Committee has driven a number of projects forward.

Without doubt the BSc Clinical Physiology degree course consumes a great deal of time and effort.  Another revision of the Record of Clinical Practice was undertaken ready for the start of the Autumn term and we make no apologies for this.  It is only by constantly reviewing and improving this vitally important component of undergraduate training that we can ensure that the final product is a competent, independent practitioner.  The latest version of the 'log book' contains additional information that has proved invaluable to both students and their work based assessors.

More trainees in the system has led to a need for a greater number of examiners and log book scrutineers and over the last year SCST have undertaken training courses to expand our core of examination staff.  In the forthcoming year we expect to undertake more training, indeed a course is being run in Belfast within the next month.  In the Autumn we hope to hold an event for internal verifiers.

The number of Higher Education Institutions offering the undergraduate degree course has increased to 12, each course requires a Professional Body Moderator to ensure that the professional requirements are upheld and I'm pleased to say that after a request for assistance in this area published in Update earlier this year we are now in a position to provide a Professional Body Moderator for each course.  Ideally we would also like to be able to provide deputies as well.  For more details regarding this please contact us.  Unfortunately, no degree course provision has yet appeared here in Scotland, however, both Catriona McGregor and Dr Eric Coleman amongst others are working very had to make this a reality as soon as possible.

Next month will see the largest set of examinations SCST has ever undertaken with almost 150 candidates at the end of their degrees taking the Undergraduate Assessment Part II.  In order to ensure that this is a fair and equitable process, in line with quality assurance requirements we have established a single centre for this exam at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.  In June we will see 165 students sitting the Undergraduate Assessment Part I examination in Oxford.

The administrative aspects of these examinations are huge and a significant amount of time was spent last summer planning and improving our admin process in conjunction with the SCST administrator.  Rather like the log book this process is under constant review with improvements frequently being implemented.   It's a steep learning curve that we have to get right and we'll continue to refine the process.

In conjunction with the Registration Council for Clinical Physiology members of the Education Committee have been contributing to the development of a Masters course in Clinical Physiology and this year has also seen the development of post graduate courses in echocardiography and cardiac rhythm management.  All of these will add to the provision of specialist training and qualifications for staff as they progress through the healthcare science career pathway.

The 'independent' ASCST Part I and II examinations continue, although I must stress that their life is limited.  From 2008 these examinations will no longer exist and the University accredited route will be the only way available to qualify as a cardiac physiologist from then on.

A brief overview of the results from last year’s examinations gives you an idea of the number of candidates undertaking each examination and the pass rates.

Moving away from exams, you may recall from last year that I announced plans for the Education Committee to produce guidelines covering various aspects of a cardiac physiologists work.  The 12-lead ECG guideline has been very well received and I'm pleased that they have been accepted by the British Cardiac Society as their recognised guidelines for ECG recording.  Unfortunately progress with other guidelines has been painstakingly slow, mainly due to the other significant demands upon members of the committee.  However, I hope that a revised version of the exercise testing guidelines should be available very shortly with more to follow over the forthcoming year.

In an attempt to overcome some of the workload issues for members of the committee we have been successful in devolving some aspects of the work to regional groups.  For example, the Welsh group are currently reviewing and revising the syllabus for the Certificate in Electrocardiography and I'd like to thank them for their efforts in this area.

Members of the Education Committee are working on producing a standardised and approved training course for ECG recording that will be available as a training package for use by those involved in delivering ECG recording training in their own hospitals and Trusts.  It is envisaged that this package will follow a similar model to the Resuscitation Councils life support courses with core, standardised, components that must be delivered to which local material can be added.

Continuing Professional Development is an area that the Education Committee is keen to move forward.  RCCP is currently auditing registrants CPD , so for some of us here today a letter may well have already landed on our doorsteps asking to see our CPD evidence - and this can't just be a file stuffed full of certificates!  Guidelines on CPD requirements are available on the RCCP website, there's also an excellent document on the SCST website which I'd strongly recommend you reading.  There'll be more to help you with this important subject in a forthcoming issue of SCST Update.

Talking of the website, a number of improvements and additions have been made over recent months and I'd like to thank our web master, Graham Tate, for his voluntary contributions to running this aspect of the Society.  As a first port of call I'd encourage you to check the website for any information you require and if it's not there then let us know and we'll remedy the situation.

I mentioned the healthcare science career pathway earlier in this report.  Hopefully this is something you are all becoming more familiar with, a printed version was reproduced in Update a few months ago and links to the electronic version are on the website.  This is the current blue print for the career paths of all scientists working in the NHS.  Members of the Education Committee have been working with the Department of Health to tailor this pathway for cardiac physiology.  In the next few months it is likely that you will begin to hear a lot more about this in terms of clear roles for assistant and associate staff together with specified educational routes for these staff.

As we are all only too aware, the NHS is undergoing constant change.  In our own area things are no different.  When the degree course was devised we knew nothing about the 18-week wait and the pressures that this would exert on diagnostic services.  What we have known for many years is that there aren't enough of us and now this blatantly obvious fact has been recognised by those at the top.  In order to meet Government targets, changes are required, 2008 is not very far away and some 'quick fixes' are being proposed.  The Education Committee is very keen to ensure that all of the hard work put into developing the current arrangements for training and education of cardiac physiologists are not eroded as a consequence.  However, from the experiences of the last four years we are now in a position to make some modifications that could provide some of the additional workforce capacity required.  In conjunction with RCCP and the Universities an accelerated programme for those already holding a first degree is being developed that would allow a broad based theoretical training over two years with practical competencies gained in the work place over a two-three year period.  These practical competencies might be broad, like the current training provides or might be limited to particular, specialist areas.  The final arrangements for this have yet to be decided. 

Finally, I'd like to end where I began by thanking all of the members of your Education Committee for their commitment over the last year and in advance of their work for the forthcoming year.  In particular I'd like to express my gratitude to those members who have stood down from the Education Committee this year, Mary Richardson, Dr Leslie Goulding and Vera Hodgkinson, a former chair of the committee and leading light of the education process nationally and in particular within Northern Ireland. 

If the future of training and education for cardiac physiologists is a keen interest of yours, why not volunteer your services by contacting us with a copy of your up to date CV.

Chris Eggett

Chairman, SCST Education Committee

April 2006