The quality of the learners' clinical education, experience and support is the joint and equal responsibility of the education provider and the placements provider, exercised through on-going, strong and collaborative relationships and regular dialogue. These standards have been published in order that learners, and those individuals and organisations who support them, understand their responsibilities and expectations in relation to practice placement learning. The Standards apply to all practice placement sites that have been approved as part of the CoR's accreditation processes.
SCoR publishes this guidance and advice document to provide information and support for the many stakeholders involved in clinical education within the diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy professions.
The quality of clinical education is paramount to the profession; academic rigour is only part of the education process and in order to have the highest quality workforce, the learning of clinical skills must be as important. This document explores the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders, the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the departments providing clinical placements and the learners themselves.
Since publication of the first version of the Education and Professional Development (EPD) Strategy in 2002, many changes have been implemented in the delivery of healthcare. This new document supersedes the version Education & Professional Development: Moving Ahead first published in 2003 and revised in 2006. Many of the principles of practice that were outlined in that document are still relevant. For patients, staff and employers to benefit from the opportunities outlined, continual development, growth and embedding of professional skills and culture are essential. Just as professional development is required to support service delivery, the profession must work closely with employers to identify adequate resources to support development opportunities and to ensure that effort and skills are properly rewarded. Delivery of the strategy outlined in this new guidance cannot be achieved without the support of the profession as a whole.
This document has been published by SCoR to help in the development of strategies which can be used to maximise student retention. A number of risk factors which impact on retention rates are identified and discussed. Most of the guidelines presented in this document are common sense approaches to retention and many are being widely used across the UK. Through the sharing of experiences, initiatives and good practice the SCoR hope that retention of radiography students may be maximised.
In this document the SCoR defines practice development within the context of radiography and sets out a strategy to facilitate practice development to the benefit of patients, clinical services and the profession.
Practice educators play a key role in the profession and The Society and College of Radiographers is pleased to launch this scheme for accrediting Practice Educators and sets up a UK register of Practice Educators.
The publication of this advice and guidance document is timely given that there has been a significant increase in the numbers of learners within clinical imaging and in radiotherapy and oncology departments. In addition, findings from Clinical Education and Training: Capacity and Quality Project Report (CoR 2004) indicated some concern about the relationships between education providers, placement providers and learners. Everyone involved in the education and training of learners, including the learners themselves, have responsibilities to ensure successful outcomes and this document aims to support all those concerned.
The healthcare environment and the health care workforce have seen major reconfiguration in recent years and this change continues apace. This strategy provides guidance for institutions developing educational and professional development initiatives for radiographers, taking the Scottish perspective into account.
This major document is an update of the Curriculum Framework published in 2003. The framework embraces all levels of practice involved in the learning and development processes and within academic and or clinical environments across the broad fields of clinical imaging and oncology.