Occasionally, medical trainees may have issues or concerns that are outside the role and expertise of their supervisor or mentor. Under these circumstances, trainees might consider making use of various support services provided by Imperial College London.

Advice and counselling for staff

• All College staff and members of their family living with them can get free, confidential professional help from Confidential Care, the College’s Employee Assistant Provider, 24 hours per day, by telephone 020 7937 6224, email info@cicwellbeing.com or via the Confidential Care website.
• Confidential Care’s helpline and web pages can provide information and advice on a wide range of work/life issues including financial and legal problems, consumer and citizens’ rights, and finding child and elderly care. 
• You can also speak or arrange to meet with a qualified counsellor to talk through personal problems in complete confidence. Couples counselling is available for staff with relationship problems. 

Occupational Health Service

The College Occupational Health Service provides services to protect health at work, assess and advise on fitness for work and to ensure that health issues are effectively managed.

Equality, diversity and inclusion 

The Equality, diversity and inclusion centre is a dedicated team that works to support staff and make Imperial a better place to work by promoting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Neurodiversity support is available and covers a range of commonly co-occurring ‘conditions’ related to processing or cognitive differences including Dyslexia, Autism, ADHD, and more. 

The Centre for Academic English specialise in STEMM communication, working with Imperial students and researchers to enhance their understanding of academic writing and speaking and to develop the linguistic tools necessary to communicate their science more effectively. 

Early Career Researcher Wellbeing

Early Career Researcher Wellbeing support is available to college staff/students aim to provide a wealth of resources to support you in managing your health and wellbeing. You will also find information in the 'wellbeing resources' section of the Post doc and fellows develeopment centre monthly newsletter and through the 'wellbeing service spotlight' posted on their Twitter account every Wednesday.

Harassment support contacts

Confidential support is available for staff affected by bullying or harassment in the workplace through Imperial’s Harassment Support Contacts. The network of Harassment Support Contacts are trained volunteers who can help members of staff by acting as a listening board and exploring options available to them through formal and informal College procedures. Harassment Support Contacts keep all discussions confidential.

Workplace stress

Guidance for those affected by workplace stress can be found on Imperial's resilience and stress web pages.

Clinical academics from all healthcare professions may find the resources listed here useful when starting out in research.

Clinical Research Training Framework
The Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre has developed the Clinical Research Training Framework to define and develop the skills that an academic clinician of any professional background requires in order to support clinical research.

The Framework supports clinical staff in the AHSC organisations to develop a detailed understanding of research, and research skills, to allow them to become more directly involved in the mission of the AHSC: to accelerate the translation of research discoveries into improvements in human health. The Framework will facilitate staff to support National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and industry trials, or develop their own clinical academic careers by proposing competencies, skills and training and suggesting opportunities and resources offered within the AHSC (and beyond).

Find out more here

Research engagement toolkit
This toolkit, produced by the Royal College of Physicians with support from the NIHR, aims to provide information for physicians to help them get engaged in research in lots of different ways.  Although produced for physicians, much of the information and guidance is useful for all healthcare professions. It includes an overview of research options, research career pathways and case studies/resources.
Find out more here‌

Building a research career handbook
This guide has been designed to assist both aspiring clinical academics and their managers to make the most of the opportunities that exist through Health Education England (HEE) and the NIHR to support health care professionals to combine clinical activity with patient-focused research. In particular, it will be of interest to non-medical healthcare clinicians applying for NIHR personal awards
NIHR booklet‌

Healer research toolkit
This toolkit is intended to help librarians in the health sector to carry out research from small-scale, local service evaluation through to much more formal research. The toolkit is intended as a starting point for those wishing to undertake a research project, highlighting issues to consider and signposting resources to help you get started.
http://researchflowchart.pbworks.com/w/page/6839792/Welcome-and-Acknowledgements. 

Research Design Service
The NIHR funds the Research Design Service (RDS) to provide design and methodological support to health and social care researchers across England to develop grant applications to the NIHR and other national peer-reviewed funding programmes.
Find out more at:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/fom-staff/support-and-services/research-support/research-design-service/
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/explore-nihr/support/research-design-service.htm

Research Navigator Tool
This tool has been developed by Imperial College Health Partners to help healthcare industries navigate their way around the research sector in North West London, and discover what support is available to help them further test and refine their products before introducing them to the NHS.
http://imperialcollegehealthpartners.com/research-navigator/

PERC:  Imperial Patient Experience and Research Centre
The Patient Experience Research Centre (PERC) is a multidisciplinary group of clinicians, public health specialists and social scientists combining strengths in quantitative and qualitative research methods. PERC aims to promote active communication between patients, researchers and clinical staff to address real problems, and through this improve the quality of healthcare and the impact of translational research.

Please visit the PERC website for details on Public Patient Involvement/Engagement (PPI/E) training sessions and information on how PERC can advise and support your research. 

Statistical Advisory Service (SAS) - Imperial College London  

 SAS offers a range of statistical training courses which may be useful for clinical academic researchers.  All courses are approved by the Royal College of Physicians for CPD points.

Courses include the following, all cover different elements of each programme and start at introductory level:

• STATA
• SPSS
• R
• MATLAB

 Further information and course fees details can be found on the SAS web pages.

The SAS Team also offers a one to one STATISTICAL CONSULTANCY SERVICE, charged at hourly or daily rates.  They request that the clients approach SAS well in advance of needing stats expertise and complete the SAS Advice Form sending to stathelp@imperial.ac.uk as the first step to get more information about your project.  The guidelines for Data preparation should be followed.

Medical trainees may find the following resources below helpful in supporting their clinical and academic training:

LPMDE Website 
This website highlights the Integrated Academic Training Pathway in England, which was established in order to promote academic medicine and dentistry and to provide a clear route for doctors and dentists interested in an academic career.

HEE Support Portal 
This support portal gives answers to FAQs and query submission for trainees, trainers and Trusts in the HEE London and KSS regions.

Synapse
A rich collection of online facilities connecting all those involved in postgraduate medical training in London.

The Gold Guide
The Gold Guide is a reference guide for postgraduate specialty training in the UK.

ICA HEE/NIHR Integrated Clinical Academic Programme (ICA)
The ICA programme, funded by Health Education England (HEE) and run by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) provides a range of opportunities to undertake fully-funded clinical research, research training and professional development, while maintaining clinical practice and salary. The programme aims to develop the clinical academic research leaders of the future with the potential to become independent researchers and lead their own research projects.

NIHR IAT Guide
This guide outlines the arrangements for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Integrated Academic Training (IAT) Programme in England.

London Medicine and Healthcare
London Medicine provides the London schools of medicine, dentistry and associated clinical academic disciplines with a forum to discuss emerging issues in the delivery of health education and research in the capital and to collaborate on new initiatives in the interest of the members.

Medical trainees may find the Imperial College London services below helpful in supporting their professional/personal development:

Imperial Graduate School
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/pg/graduate-school/

Imperial Education Development Unit
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff/educational-development/

Imperial Postdoctoral and Fellows Development Centre
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/postdoc-fellows-development-centre/

The following organisations may offer funding to support research activities/posts/projects for medical professionals: 

Association of Medical Research Charities

Imperial Health Charity

NIHR TCC

The Medical Research Council (MRC) has developed videos to help fellowship candidates prepare their applications and get ready to face the panel. There are two Insight Videos: ‘How to win funds and influence panels’ and ‘Interview day: Mock interview for a Clinical Research Training Fellowship’

There is additional support available for doctors in training following long term absence (including sickness).

Check out Supported Return to Training for more information.

AHSC Academic skills certification for clinicians on research-linked attachments

Clinicians often join Imperial College linked groups to learn research (and clinical skills), which they use to enhance their own work on returning home. The Imperial Clinical Academic Training Office supports such activity and provides a mechanism for certification of attendance at such training, in relation to research or clinical research skills (and not purely clinical skills).

For eligibility and the certification application process please refer to the following:
•  AHSC Academic skills certification_process and criteria
•  AHSC Academic skills certification_Form A
• AHSC Academic skills certification_Form B

The HRA website provides useful information about planning research, ethics applications and runs research approvals.

HRA Approval brings together the HRA's assessment of governance and legal compliance with the independent ethical opinion by a Research Ethics Committee (REC). HRA Approval is for all project based research involving the NHS and Health and Social Care (HSC) that is being led from England; visit the HRA website to find out more. 

Guidance on student research approvals
For up to date information on HRA guidance for student research please visit the dedicated section of the HRA website.

(Student research means studies which are primarily for the purpose of obtaining an educational qualification.)