Information for trainees

Hospital placements

In your first two years of training (ST1 and ST2) you’ll complete three six-month specialty placements at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Each hospital placement is designed to help you build transferable knowledge and skills that are relevant to general practice.

Example posts from August 2016 include:

GP/Innovative Training Posts (ITP)

Each of our trainees undertake two GP attachments:

  • A 12-month ST3 attachment
  • A 6-month ST1/ST2 attachment - every trainee on this scheme is given the opportunity to undertake this as an ITP,  with your time split between working in a GP practice and working in one of the areas listed below

We think this represents a unique opportunity to broaden your horizons in posts that are relevant and interesting. Alternatively, you may choose to spend the 6 months in full-time General Practice.

For all the ITP posts your primary location is your training practice and your secondary location is the ITP site.

The weekly timetable for each of these ITP posts includes:

  • 6 sessions in practice (5 clinical, 1 tutorial)
  • 1 session half-day teaching
  • 3 session in ITP specialty (4 sessions during breaks in term time)

Outlined below is a brief digested description of each post:

Innovative Training Posts GP training Imperial College London

Kings Fund post - Health care policy

This post gives the trainee a unique opportunity to work with the Kings Fund. You will work with the  team on one of the active projects evaluating and understanding current healthcare policy.

This could include looking at GP commissioning, service redesign, completion and choice etc.

There will also be the opportunity to attend prestigious events at the Kings Fund and to work with a dynamic team who have a direct impact on government policy.

This post would suit someone who is keen to understand the wider picture, engage with healthcare policy and has ambitions to shape the developing landscape. You will get to learn about research methodology and outcomes should include successful publication.

Learn more about their work at The Kings Fund.

Imperial College London - Academic Primary Care

This post is based in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London.

This department is a centre of excellence for Academic Primary care and Education. The trainee will have opportunities to get involved in Academic Primary Care, Undergraduate Teaching and Medical Writing. This would suit a trainee who would like to develop an interest in academic primary care and get some supported ‘hands-on’ experience of teaching. Outcomes should include successful publication.

Clinical research (including rheumatology)

This post is based with Dr Sonya Abraham working in clinical research at the Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine (ICTEM).

During the time spent in Clinical Research the trainee will actively participate on Dr Abraham’s research team, including screening and consenting for clinical trials, participate in regular departmental meetings, undertake research training and publish a review article. As well as being a research network lead, Dr Abraham is a rheumatologist and will be happy to run a couple of tutorials on rheumatology for the trainee in post. The research that the trainee undertakes can be related to any of the other active research streams in the department (eg rheumatology,  vaccination, oncology, haematology, imaging, neurology). Dr Abraham is happy to be contacted by trainees to discuss this further.

Community diabetes

This post is working alongside Ann Dornhurst, Consultant Diabetologist. The trainee would participate in Diabetes Clinics and gain an in-depth understanding of this important condition.

This would suit a trainee who is interested in Diabetes, and becoming a GP with a Special Interest in Diabetes.

Medical education fellow

This post is working alongside the team in the Lee Kong Chan School of Medicine. This new medical school in Singapore is a joint venture between Singapore University and Imperial College. The post is based at The South Kensington Campus. The trainee will work on curriculum development, evaluation and teaching tool development and assessment (eg developing exam questions) as part of the team.  This would suit a trainee who is interested in Undergraduate Education.

Cancer care - Macmillan post

This post gives the trainee an opportunity to work alongside the Macmillan GP in planning and influencing delivery of cancer services and training in the community.

Paediatrics

This post incorporates time in paediatric A+E and a weekly opportunity to get involved in a fantastic array of ongoing Integrated Care Projects at the interface of Paediatrics and Primary Care. This work will include service design project work, patient engagement work, data work exploring delivering a more ‘connected’ approach of healthcare to children. They would look at ways of engaging with the Primary Care team, through GP liaison, education and communication.  Supervision for this work will be provided by their Consultant Clinical Supervisor and the attached academic registrar.

Stand-alone GP

This is a standard 6 months post – working full time in General Practice with one of our attached GP practices.

Some trainees chose to use this six months to focus on core General Practice. As such the timetable is the same as a standard ST3 trainee:

  • 8 sessions in GP (7 clinical, 1 tutorial)
  • 1 session professional development
  • 1 half-day session teaching

Please note if you are Less than Fulltime Training (LTFT) then current Deanery rules mean that you will be automatically placed in a stand-alone GP post.

General Practice placement

In your third year (ST3) you’ll train within a hospital setting, an alternative primary care or community settings and a general practice setting. During the general practice placement you will focus on:

  • Developing consultation skills
  • Managing a range of primary care medical problems
  • Completing the clinical skills assessment and work-based programme component of the MRCGP

Examples of services provided by GP training practices in and around our area include:

  • Antenatal care
  • Asthma clinic
  • Baby clinic
  • Child health surveillance
  • Complementary therapy and palliative care
  • Counselling
  • Diabetic clinic
  • Family planning
  • Heart disease clinic
  • Hypertension clinic
  • Leg ulcer clinic
  • Minor surgery
  • Smoking cessation clinic
  • Women's health