Who can be an educational supervisor on the RCPCH ePortfolio?
Before we add someone to RCPCH ePortfolio as an educational supervisor, they will need to meet these requirements:
- Be on the General Medical Council (GMC) specialist register1
OR have approved recognised trainer status on the GMC List of Registered Medical Practitioners (LRMP)
AND - Be working in the UK
What is expected?
The GMC defines an Educational Supervisor as "a trainer who is selected and appropriately trained to be responsible for the overall supervision and management of a specified trainee’s educational progress during a clinical training placement or series of placements." The Educational Supervisor is responsible for the trainee's Educational Agreement.
The GMC publishes information about trainers on the medical register, including doctors who have been recognised as a:
- named postgraduate clinical supervisor
- named postgraduate educational supervisor.
Doctors who hold either of these roles have a note on the medical register entry to say, "This doctor is a trainer recognised by the GMC".
The Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans of the United Kingdom (COPMeD) has created overarching principles to promote an excellent, supportive offer to trainees particularly in the final years of training. COPMeD expect the principles to underpin a strong, ongoing supportive approach for trainees in the longer term. We recommend all supervisors adhere to the principles which can be downloaded below.
Difference between a clinical supervisor and an educational supervisor
To continue to be recognised as a supervisor, trainers will be required to document evidence from the GMC's standards, which are listed below.
| Standards | Clinical Supervisor role? | Educational Supervisor role? |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Ensuring safe and effective patient care | Yes | Yes |
| 2. Establishing and maintaining an environment for learning | Yes | Yes |
| 3. Teaching and facilitating learning | Yes | Yes |
| 4. Enhancing learning through assessment | Yes | Yes |
| 5. Supporting and monitoring educational progress | No | Yes |
| 6. Guiding personal and professional development | No | Yes |
| 7. Continuing professional development as an educator | Yes | Yes |
RCPCH ePortfolio as an educational supervisor
RCPCH ePortfolio is on the Risr/advance platform (formerly Kaizen). It's the online tool for you and your trainees to review activities and monitor progress through the curriculum, and stores everything trainees do in their timeline.
You can read our RCPCH ePortfolio guidance for supporting training for tips and advice for using the ePortfolio, as well as the ePortfolio guidance available to download below.
Courses
We offer our Effective Educational Supervision course throughout the year - see upcoming EES courses.
Longitudinal supervision - what is expected?
As part of Progress+ curriculum, 11 principles were set out to deliver high quality training in the Paediatrician of the future document. Principle 8 talks about Educational supervision being of high quality and providing consistency. Longitudinal supervision was felt to be an ideal way for a trainee to achieve this so where possible trainees should have the same Educational Supervisor (ES) throughout core training and a consistent ES through sub-specialty training. The idea behind longitudinal supervision is that it will allow for longer term support, helping with career planning and working on more long-term developmental goals.
For some schools within England and the devolved nations, Longitudinal supervision has been working well for many years. They are likely to have practices in place that don’t need to change.
For other areas, longitudinal supervision is new and will take some time to get used too. There are some differences in the role of the ES versus CS depending on a trainees posts and requirements that they need. Feedback from those areas that have longitudinal supervision has on the whole been positive and rewarding for the trainees but also the ES.
We have provided a summary below to show the differing meeting requirements of a CS and ES within a 6 month post and includes the areas to be discussed. There will be different for trainees staying in a clinical post for a longer timeframe.
Be aware that there are also some local paediatric school differences on the reports required . If any queries , do discuss this at a local level with your College Tutors or TPDs.
- 1This does not necessarily have to be in Paediatrics - the decision to appoint a supervisor is a local decision outside of the remit of the RCPCH. See www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/the-medical-register/a-guide-to-the-medical-register/specialist-registration