Education
Attracting and developing staff across all partners of the AHSC is one of its strategic objectives. The AHSC aims to help scientists, healthcare professionals and other staff from a wide variety of disciplines, professions and backgrounds come together to excel in research and clinical care.
Professional development support
The AHSC provides a range of professional development opportunities for NHS staff.
It has compiled, through the Courses for NHS staff web resource, Imperial College London courses for NHS staff in areas such as digital health, quality improvement, research methods, statistics and healthcare leadership and development. These courses are rooted in the university’s research expertise and will equip NHS staff with the latest skills and techniques to bring further benefits to patients and populations. Either online, blended learning or short courses, these programmes are open to all NHS staff, from doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to managers, technical and support staff. The resource also provides links to more comprehensive listings of Imperial’s courses.
The Royal Marsden School offers specialist short courses and post graduate opportunities championing change and improvement in cancer care through research and innovation, education, and leading-edge practice. Courses are firmly embedded within clinical practice and drawn upon clinical experts and researchers from across The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.
Clinical Academic Training Office
The AHSC’s pan-professional clinical academic training hub, the Imperial Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO) offers a wide range of opportunities and support activities to enable clinicians to get involved in research or pursue a research career. Through a range of initiatives doctors and other healthcare professionals can complete their training/carry out roles whilst learning and undertaking research alongside internationally renowned clinicians and researchers.
Clinical academic training across the AHSC is overseen by the AHSC Research Education Committee and supported by CATO.
CATO supports the development of clinical researchers in all clinical health professions and across the career pathway. The CATO programme includes:
- Masterclasses and research
- Information and signposting about funding and opportunities to ensure success
- Guidance around research careers, mentoring and one-to-one advice
- Research skills training, academic interview and writing workshops and resources such as the Clinical Research Training Framework
- Targeted workshops to identify and nurture a growing cohort of ‘non-medical’ clinical academic researchers (Nurses, Midwives, Allied Health Professions, Healthcare Scientists, Pharmacy staff, Pharmacists, NMAHPPs)
