Hello let me introduce myself, I am Dr Bridget Langham and I am the Director of Foundation
Training for the East Midlands.
Along with my two Foundation School Directors I work with all the trainers and trainees
in the region to ensure that we deliver excellent Foundation Training that benefits both our
Foundation Trainees and our patients.
I would like to spend the next 10 minutes introducing you to the two Foundation Schools
in the East Midlands,
that is the LNR Foundation School and the Trent Foundation School.
The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England, it is the eastern part
of the Midlands, encompassing Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire,
Rutland and most of Lincolnshire.
Our region contains the geographical centre of England, located in Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire,
the highest point is Kinder Scout in the Peak District at 636m and we have 50 miles of coastline
on our eastern border in Lincolnshire.
The region is home to a number of large and vibrant cities but is surrounded by countryside
leading to a fantastic work-life balance.
The region whilst diverse is geographically compact.
The map that you can see here indicates the areas that our two foundation schools cover.
The LNR Foundation School is historically linked to Leicester Medical School; it is
the smaller of our 2 schools and has a total of 60 programmes accommodating 175 trainees.
All Foundation Year 1 posts are linked at application to a Foundation Year 2 post.
The School is based on the geography of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire.
The LNR programmes are based at University Hospitals Leicester, Kettering General Hospital
and Northampton General Hospital.
The majority of trainees spend 1 year at University Hospitals Leicester with the second year at
Kettering or Northampton, or vice versa.
A small number of programmes are based for the whole 2 years in the Leicester group of
hospitals.
The Trent School is historically aligned to Nottingham Medical School and has a total
of 106 programmes for 318 trainees.
Again all Foundation Year 1 posts are linked at application to a Foundation Year 2 post.
The programmes are divided into East and West Programmes.
The East Programmes are centred around Nottingham University Hospitals and all trainees spend
1 year at Nottingham University Hospitals and 1 year at one of our sites in Lincolnshire,
either Lincoln County Hospital, Pilgrim Hospital, Boston or Grantham and District Hospital.
The West programmes are centred round the Royal Derby Hospital and all trainees spend
1 year at Derby and one year at either Chesterfield hospital or Kings Mill Hospital, Mansfield.
By splitting our programmes in this way we are ensuring that all trainees get a wide
experience of different hospital settings and we are also minimising travel distances.
The two foundation Schools recognise the importance of the academic career pathway in medicine
and both host Academic Foundation Programmes.
These programmes are supported by the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham who have an active
presence in all our local education providers, with medical students from both Universities
being accommodated at all of our hospital sites. More information about our academic
programmes can be found on our website.
Although we have 2 Foundation Schools in the East Midlands, the experience of foundation
training across our patch is the same, with all trainees accessing the same professional
generic skills programme including 2 days of acute simulation and human factors training,
Advanced life support, the SCRIPT safe prescribing skills e-learning package,
ethics and consent training and child protection.
We have also commissioned bespoke training in public health and end of life care and
the psychiatrists in the region have developed a training package which includes the use
of simulated patients and e-learning.
We pride ourselves in listening to our trainees and as a result of feedback we have received
we have developed a foundation choices programme.
We have commissioned local NHS and private providers to deliver a suite of face to face
courses of interest to all specialty career preferences from which our foundation Trainees
can choose as part of their professional Generic Skills training.
Our foundation choices programme dovetails neatly with the careers support we are able
to deliver.
All of our FY1 trainees have the opportunity to attend a 1 day workshop titled Your Career,
Your Life, Your direction.
This is a workshop that is aimed at giving all our foundation Trainees the skills to
succeed in a career, whether they have a committed career direction or remain undecided.
This workshop is supported by a series of seminars and e-learning packages that we have
developed for our FY2 trainees, they have access to these prior to the opening of the speciality
recruitment process.
Now I have already indicated that feedback from our foundation trainees is important to us.
We actively seek our trainees' opinions on Foundation Training and ask that they complete
our end of placement survey at the end of each of their 6 foundation posts.
We also require them to complete the GMC National Trainee survey.
Each of the base hospitals has an active junior doctors committee and at each site there are
both FY1 and FY2 representatives who work with the local Foundation Training Programme
Directors to improve Foundation Training.
Foundation year 1 and foundation year 2 representatives also sit on our foundation Schools board and
play an active part in developing the strategic direction of the LNR and Trent Foundation
Schools.
Our trainees do enjoy Foundation Training in the region as you can see from the comments
on this slide.
The East Midlands region is also able to offer excellent specialty training once trainees
have completed their Foundation years.
Thank you for watching this short podcast and I look forward to welcoming you to the
East Midlands Foundation Schools in the near future.