Clinical Educators in Emergency Departments 2018-19 Pilot

From October 2018, Health Education England and national stakeholders including the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) will work with the most challenged Acute Trust Emergency Departments to implement Clinical Educator strategies. It is suggested that the development of innovative new Clinical Educator roles might support retention and wellbeing of multi-professional clinical teams in the Emergency Department. However, there is currently no basis for comparison or evidence base in the UK to support such an approach, so a test of concept and linked evaluation where deemed necessary to justify any future development, integration or commissioning of Clinical Educator roles.

From January 2018, a partnership including HEE, NHSI, NHSE and RCEM tasked all Heads of School of Emergency Medicine in England to identify and rank Acute Trust Emergency Departments according to their need for educational support. Data from the 2017 GMC survey, ACCS/ HST surveys, local education surveys, HEE quality visits, CQC visits, resignation rates and local intelligence was used to provide a rationale for allocation of rankings in each region. A total of 72 Trusts were identified and confirmed by the Training Standards Committee & HEE. HEE funding was secured to support the release of (the equivalent of) 160 Programme Activities (PAs) of Clinical Educator time, to be divided across the 72 Trusts as part of a 2-wave recruitment to support posts. It is estimated that 50-60 clinical educators may take up the role during the pilot, from 1st October 2018. A conservative estimate is that each clinical educator will have responsibility for the shop floor education of 5-20 clinicians; approximately 1000 in total.

Central to this large-scale national pilot project will be a process of continuous evaluation, standard setting, quality monitoring, benefits realisation and recalibration (where necessary). We recognise that a comprehensive evaluation is essential to generate an evidence base capable of determining return on investment and any demonstrable impact to the quality and accessibility of multi-professional training and education through Clinical Educator roles. Evaluation findings should also assist in shaping and refining the clinical educator model in response to emerging implementation strategies.

Summary Evaluation Scope

Health Education England (HEE) requires an evaluation partner to evaluate the multi-professional workforce impact of Clinical Educator strategies within the pilot project Emergency Departments.

The evaluation will take a phased, integrative approach and will demonstrate engagement from the commencement of the pilot with key stakeholders including HEE, RCEM, NHSI and the Schools of Emergency Medicine. The evaluation will enable the identification of primary and secondary benefits, innovative practice and capture of the (anticipated) wide variation in local Clinical Educator strategies. The evaluation team will assist the project team in ensuring educational governance and quality. The project aims to create a sustainable vision for the integration of Clinical Educator workforce strategies across all Emergency Departments.