Trainer Groups
Every GP trainer in the Severn Primary Care School (PCS) should belong to a Trainer Group (Workshop). At the last Trainer Conference in October 2008 about eighty trainers discussed the function of these groups and shared ideas (click). Regular attendance at these groups is an important part of the continuing professional educational development of trainers. These groups provide valuable support and an excellent forum to share experience and to benchmark. They are particularly useful for potential and new trainers to imbibe the GP trainer culture. It is useful if trainer groups have a linked GP Educator from the local GPE team.
Experienced Trainers’ Courses (ETC)
They are experiential and fairly intensive. You work in a small group of about six GP trainers with an experienced facilitator for three days. There are usually about 12 to 24 participants. This is when you get a chance to demonstrate your teaching skills using DVDs and role play and get immediate feedback and some challenge in a safe environment. You teach your peers and also ST3s & sometimes F2s. We use the Cambridge-Calgary process to get to where we need to be faster. The format is very flexible and will be adapted to the stated learning needs of the participants. There is a requirement from PMETB to do one of these courses every three years between your re-approval visits. During the course you will be helped to produce a Mutually Agreed Statement of Learning (MASL) which will help to inform your educational CPD. Click for more details.
Trainer Approval and Re- approval visits
Established trainers and their practices are visited every three years as part of our QA process according to the Criteria for Training Practices. Much of the (re-)application form 
Trainer Criteria and (Re-)application form can be completed by the practice manager, whom the visiting team will be keen to meet. As the new application form is mapped to the Criteria the trainer should be very familiar with the requirements. At this visit the focus is very much on the learner’s experience thus it is important that all the learners in the practice e.g. ST3s & F2s are available to meet the visiting team. We also focus on the trainer’s educational facilitation skills. Part of this process is to look at a DVD of the trainer teaching their current learner (F2, ST2 or ST3). The trainer should provide a log of the teaching DVD, and should be prepared to show any part the DVD that visitors wish to look at. It is useful if the log is mapped against the Teaching Competencies on the Teaching Competence grid (click to download).
The team will wish to discuss the trainer’s development needs and will discuss their MASL from their last ETC. The visiting team is also keen to meet briefly other members of the PHCT, including doctors, who are involved in teaching the GP learners. If there are retainers in the practice it is useful to meet their supervisors. The visiting team will usually be led by the patch Associate Director and will include another trainer and their GP Registrar. If there are two trainers in the practice efforts will be made to make it a joint visit which then last up to four hours.
Trainers’ Conferences
They are large one or two day events for about eighty trainers. They are an opportunity to network widely across the Severn Primary Care School footprint.
They tend to be a mixture of interactive presentations and group work. Time is built in to enable lots of informal information and experience sharing. In October 2008 eighty of us had two excellent, busy days at Saunton Sands. We had some national experts on ePortfolio, educational supervision and WPBA to help us. Everyone had an opportunity to hone their CbD and COT skills.
We are planning to have two trainer conferences a year, each of two days. We hope that most training practices can send a trainer to attend one of these conferences each year. As the conferences are extremely popular individual trainers should only attend one per year. We are a huge faculty of 250 trainers and about 40 Associate Directors, GP Educators and GP Educator Fellows. There is a wealth of talent and expertise amongst us.
Higher Educational Qualifications
The Severn Primary Care School is keen that members of the teaching faculty like trainers have an opportunity to develop their educational careers by working towards Certificates, Diplomas or Masters in Medical Education. Many members have done this through distance learning with Dundee University or Bristol University’s Teaching and Learning for Health Professional Programme (TLHP). There is some finance support available from the SHA and details of this are available from Chris Doncom at the Severn Deanery. To access this you will need support from your appraiser and your Associate Director & GPE team.