Excellence in Healthcare Professional Education and Support Programmes

Summary of work

As Specialist Registrars (SpRs) transition into consultant positions, there can be a very steep learning curve when the leadership, managerial and responsibility expectations increase and intensify. Aspiring and new in-post consultants are expected to shape and enhance patient services and engagement; lead collaboration with peers; mentor juniors and be fluent and compelling in presenting their ideas, learnings and research to other clinicians and senior NHS managers. With NHS funds stretched, communication, service development and presentation skills for this group of specialists are limited. The Takeda UK Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) team became aware of this need, particularly within IBD and, together with Inspire Change, looked to address this gap by initiating ACTIVATE, a programme that offers ‘late in-training’ SpRs and ‘new in-post’ consultants the capability training, skills, and support to become expert communicators and presenters. They are then able to put this learning into practice to become more effective and forward-thinking IBD leaders. ACTIVATE has received consistently strong feedback from participants, such as “Outstanding programme, changes the way you see yourself and do things” – Dr Tina Rosiou, and has enabled and inspired SpRs and consultants to enact change and confidently drive the optimisation of the IBD patients in their care.

Judges' comments

The entry from Takeda and Inspire Change showed a clear understanding of what needed to be addressed. It had a full set of challenging, SMART objectives, which were pulled through into the strategy. It had adapted to the pandemic and had good performance metrics. The entry was very clear and well put together and had an especially strong focus on skills development. The judges particularly liked the boldness of the ambition.