Educational Structure of the Scheme

Posted by: Chloe Norton - Posted on:

Hi again! I hope everyone had a lovely Easter break. For this blog, I thought I would shine a light on the education and competency side of the scheme. So the NHS GMTS is made up of 6 specialisms; Informatics, HR, Finance, Analysis, Policy & Strategy, and General Management.

Whilst on our placements, we have to ensure we are doing the correct work that the scheme requires of us. In order to do this, we have a list of competencies that we have to sign off. We have to aim for 40% by the end of our first placement, and 90+% by the end of the second in order to graduate. Most of the competencies are similar across the specialisms, but there are some that are specific to a specialism. Just to give you an example of a competency, I have selected one of the first competencies from the ‘Developing Personal Qualities’.

  • Understands the impact they have on others and the impact others have on them. Can review and reassess own beliefs, values and leadership style.
    • This should be evidenced as part of the Personal Development Review process, demonstrating personal self-awareness. Uses suitable instruments (e.g. MBTI) to gain feedback.

We are expected to work closely with our managers to sign off competencies. Competencies are given a rating of 1-5, 1 being basic knowledge (such as a conversation, or doing research), and 5 being fully immersed into the task. 

Everyone has to complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Health Leadership, kindly provided to us by the University of Birmingham. However, the general managers will pursue a Diploma unlike the rest of us. This course is really interesting for me, coming from a psychology background. There are a lot of interactive online activities, readings, and tasks, which all centre round health leadership. The course looks at the behaviour of individuals, teams, and organisations in order to help us reflect on our own behaviour and to develop a good leadership style. The assignments for this course are a combination of critical essays and work-based evidence which require us to reflect on our behaviour after tasks. This course lasts one year (2 for general managers), so we will achieve our qualifications in June/July of our first year – hopefully without any retakes!

For us Informatics students, we have to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Informatics provided by UCL. I’m not going to lie; I find this course extremely hard as it’s not what I’m used to! We study for the duration of the scheme and gain our qualification in June/July of our 2nd year. The course focuses on issues, developments, and theories behind informatics. For example, our first module was ‘Principles of Health Informatics’ which introduced us to the topic, a range of issues, software used in healthcare, and knowledge representation. The course consists of a mixture of exams and essays (mostly essays phew!). We also have to go in to UCL for a 3 day teaching period once for every module. This is quite nice as we get time away from our desks and the informatics trainees can get to know each other better!

The rest of the specialisms have their own qualifications that they gain during the 2 years of the scheme. The information is all on the nhsgraduates website but I am just adding it here as well; Finance: CIPFA; Health Analysis: Postgraduate Diploma in Health Analysis; HR: Postgraduate Diploma in HR; and Policy & Strategy: Postgraduate Diploma in Health Policy.

I hope this has made the structure of the scheme clearer! Thank you for reading!

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