The Christie Foundation Trust Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust Annual Report & Accounts 2021-22

School of Oncology

This period has seen the Christie School of Oncology (SoO) continue in its remit of delivering high-quality education and training to students, staff, and the national/international cancer workforce. The need to support the Trust during this difficult time has not blunted the ambition of the SoO in maintaining the highest quality patient care through learning. This has been a period of consolidation and taking forward the opportunities and challenges presented to the SoO; once again, we end the year reflecting on a period of significant change and challenges met. We also end the year having worked more collaboratively as a team and with our Trust colleagues. Developing our workforce A focus of this year has been the development of leadership and learning development skills for members of the Christie workforce. A range of high-quality learning opportunities, from coaching, mentoring and on-line learning has been provided to ensure that the Christie continues to focus on its role as a well-led organisation. This has involved close working with colleagues from the Workforce team to ensure an integrated approach to all learning opportunities. Commitment to the development of the workforce continues with support for leadership and management development with the creation of a range of programmes. The development of high-quality learning requires a workforce with specialist skills in developing education. The Workforce and Digital Learning Teams have begun the development of a learning plan which provides all staff with the skills to develop and deliver learning – whether formally or informally. This preparation of current and future educators supports the ambition to be an educator of choice – whether this is by enthusing undergraduate students about their placements, creating high quality learning for the Christie workforce, or developing products for international colleagues. The

‘Educating the Educator’ online programme is now live. This year has particularly seen the benefit of a more focussed approach to planning and delivering education and learning – building on the implementation of training needs conversations with all services in the last year. This allows for a more targeted approach to commissioning and delivering learning. Working to prioritise the needs of all the services in terms of education and creating new ways of delivering education and events. This has also seen teams across the SoO review learning content to ensure that it is accessible – working with partner organisations to ensure that this is embedded in all learning. Developing the future workforce The Medical and Non-Medical Education teams continued business-as-usual, whilst identifying opportunities to review and renew the service. Students and trainees have continued to arrive within the Trust; providing the team with an array of challenges to support placements whilst complying with the bio-security requirements of the Trust. This period saw 37 Fellows joining the Trust. The period also saw the introduction of dashboard reporting to track workstreams and make data more accessible. In addition, a new buddy scheme has commenced to support our Fellows during their time at the Christie. In late 2021, the team released the first Christie International Fellowship Programme newsletter, which will continue to be released on a twice annual basis to celebrate our trainee and alumni successes. The newsletter will promote the scheme to potential candidates, working closely with international colleagues. In Autumn 2021, the SoO completed the successful recruitment of a new Education fellow, Dr Thilina Ruwanpara, through funds provided by Christie International. Dr Ruwanpara is a Clinical Oncologist who has specific remit to focus on

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