Welcome (back) to Bolton GP Training!

Hello to the hundred-odd of you who join us in Bolton for your GP Training! We are proud to have you and excited to welcome you to the teaching programmes.

This email comes from Dr Kat Rothwell and Dr Seb Pillon who are the Primary Care Medical Educators for Bolton. You can find out more About Us and Bolton on our website.

This email regards the Structured Education Programmes which are provided in Bolton across the three-year GP Specialty Training. You’ll learn the most during your placements in hospital and GP posts. Our role is to help provide teaching in areas where that might not be universal for all trainees, and get you ready to be real GPs! We hope you’ll enjoy learning with us.

Our website is the best place to look for the teaching timetables; take a look at the ST1, ST2 and ST3 pages, or you can see an overview of all the education Events. Our Trainee page, teaching attendance policy and FAQs are also worth a read.We are still in the process of confirming guest speakers, venues and times, but we’ve shared what we know already.

The first teaching session for each year group is as follows: 

ST1

Knowing Yourself and Relating to Others

ST2

ST2-A: Applying Clinical Knowledge

ST2-B: Caring for the Whole Person & Wider Community

ST3

ST3-A: Managing Complex & Long-Term Care

ST3-B: Working Well in Organisations & Systems of care

• ST1: First Session: 5th September 2024 1330-1630, Education Centre (Led by Dr Kat Rothwell) 
• ST2: First Session: 10th September 2024 1400-1700, Education Centre (Led by DrSeb Pillon) 
• ST3: First Session: 11th September 2024 0900-1700, Education Centre (Led by Drs Kat Rothwell & Seb Pillon)

We’ll explain how the teaching programme for each year group works in that first session, so do try to attend. Hospital and GP practices know that you have teaching sessions and should try to release you where possible, although on-call rotas may make this impossible for a few. We’ll try and catch you up when we next see you if you let us know.

We know some of you will have lots of questions. We have found the most efficient way to answer these is on the Welcome sessions for each year group, as many of you will share the same queries. 

Please be mindful that the Education Team both in Bolton and at NHS England deal with many queries and are particularly busy at this time of year. If you have questions, please take a good look at our website to see if we’ve answered it already. Some common questions that we have answered on the website are also shared at the end of this email. If you have checked and your question isn’t answered, do get in touch and we’ll get back to you when we can, but this is unlikely to be the same day.

We’ll finish with our Mission Statement:

To work with Training Practices, GP Trainers, the Trainee group and individual Trainees to produce GP’s proficient in the delivery of high quality primary health care, both now and in the future.

We look forward to seeing you in September
Seb & Kat

   Common Questions   

• Which teaching should I attend?
  • In general, you should attend teaching sessions that correspond with your current grade (ST1, ST2 or ST3). More senior trainees who have missed past sessions are welcome to attend any session they wish as long as this is agreed with their ES and fits in their job plan.
• What teaching is provided?
  • In ST1, 18 sessions are provided on selected Thursday afternoons. In ST2, 20 sessions are provided in two 10-session semesters on selected Tuesday afternoons. 
  • ST2-A and ST2-B can be sat in either order depending on whether trainees enter in February or August. In ST2, trainees are also invited to attend a Communication Skills course which runs in addition to the main teaching programme during one of the semesters.
  • In ST3, trainees are provided with 50 sessions of teaching spread across Wednesdays. The programme caters for entry in both February and August.
• Can I attend sessions online instead?
  • The majority of our sessions are in person. We think this provides a richer experience overall, and trainee feedback seems to echo that. We currently do not have the facility to simulcast sessions to be viewed remotely.
• How many sessions am I expected to attend?
  • Teaching sessions are provided for some of the allocated time in your job plan for educational time, and thus form part of your contract. Attendance is mandatory, and should be considered with the same gravity as clinical sessions. When on hospital posts with on-call rotas, it is understood and acceptable that trainees may need to miss sessions to perform clinical duties or comply with mandatory rest requirements (i.e. zero days and post-nights).
  • Trainees on annual leave are not expected to attend, but should ensure their ES is aware of planned leave in advance. Our attendance policy is visible here
• What should I do when scheduled teaching isn’t taking place?
  • Where educational time is scheduled but there is no session, trainees can use the time for educational activity. This should be logged in their portfolio.
  • Trainees should consider their PDP and own needs, and proactively arrange activity with an educational focus.
  • These might include (but are most certainly not limited to) attendance at an outpatient clinic, time with community/multidisclipinary teams, “reflective surgeries”, e-learning, revision/practice groups.
  • If nothing has been arranged, a Trainer may suggest a clinical session as each and every patient contact is a potential learning opportunity.
  • We typically don’t provide any sessions in July or August due to larger amounts of annual leave, and the fact that many departments and practices use the educational time to provide additional induction and support whilst you acclimatise to the new workplace.
• I am on-call/on leave/ill/can’t attend teaching, what should I do?
  • Trainees are not expected to attend teaching if they are on a scheduled on-call/zero day or if they are ill. They may choose to do so if they wish, but should not be pressured into doing so.
• I am a LTFT/out-of-sync trainee, when should I move to ST2/ST3 teaching?
  • We recommend staying with ST1 teaching until you have completed your ST1 posts. If you are LTFT, you will have technically “over attended” sessions in the initial part of your training (i.e. a trainee at 80% should technically leave teaching sessions after 80%, which is obviously absurd!), so you will owe time back to either clinical roles or your own time. You can complete this time in the last months of your ST1 post.
  • ST2 and ST3 have start points in February and August each year, so we recommend joining at either of these times, as close as possible to when you change from ST1/ST2 to ST2/ST3. As teaching takes place on different days, this will require planning and negotiation with your current post to ensure it can be managed.
  • You should spend 12 months full-time equivalent in each teaching group. Please email us in advance of your planned switch date so we can ensure you receive emails and reminders and invites for sessions.
• How is attendance recorded?
  • Trainees should complete the register for each session they attend.
  • However, the most comprehensive register of attendance is maintained by trainees themselves, by completing a portfolio entry for each session attended. We recommend this for several reasons: to consolidate learning, to ensure trainees demonstrate curriculum coverage, and to provide evidence of attendance in case of dispute. If a trainee fails/forgets to mark attendance on a register, it can be clearly seen on their portfolio whether they did, in fact attend.
• Can I do something else instead of attending teaching?
  •  You are welcome to use educational time for your own educational work, as long as this is agreed with your ES or the TPD in advance. Examples might include educational courses, specialist tutorials or essential training elsewhere. 
  • Educational time cannot be used as default “free time” in which to book personal appointments or leisure time (unless already approved as annual leave). 
  • Preparation for any exam would not be considered an appropriate use of alternative educational time.
  • The GP Trainee job contract pays trainees for educational time, and trainees should therefore be prepared to produce evidence of how the hours allocated to training have been used (usually via e-portfolio). 
  • Inappropriate use of educational time may be considered a probity and fitness to practice issue. NHS England pay you a salary for a job plan that includes mandatory educational time, and there is an expectation that you are able to evidence how you used that time.

Dr Katherine Rothwell & Dr Sebastian Pillon

Deputy Training Programme Directors, Bolton (jobshare)

https://gp-training.hee.nhs.uk/bolton/