November 2016


This newsletter aims to provide up to date information regarding CASE activities & requirements regarding validation, annual

programme monitoring & other relevant issues.

Please share with your colleagues.

 

In this edition of the Newsletter:

(hint: lots of new things!)

 

 

Report from the New Chair

 

Report from the Outgoing-Chair

 

A word from our newest Member Organisation

 

APMR Report 2014/15

 

CASE Accreditors Update Day

 

New CASE website

 

New Forms & Templates

 

Helpful Info and On-line Training for Accreditors

 

Accreditors: New & Current

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


CASE would like to welcome five new members to the Committee:

 

Gill Harrison who will represent SCoR

Neil Pugh who will represent IPEM

Anna Jerram who will represent SVT

and Mike Smith & Stuart Wildman who will represent our newest member CSP

 

 

You can find out more about the Committee members on our website

 

Did you know?

 

2016 has been a good year for applications and there are a record eight NEW programmes and focused courses currently going through, or about to go through, accreditation! 

Some of these are being delivered by our existing course providers but others are from new and 'non-traditional' providers.

 

 

CASE MEMBER ORGANISATIONS

 

British Medical Ultrasound Society

 

 

Chartered Society of Physiotherapy

 

 

Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

 

 

 

Society and College of Radiographers

 

 

 

Society for Vascular Technology of Great Britain and Ireland

 

 

 

CASE gets Social!

 

  

 

Report from the Chair

It is a privilege to be offered the role of Chair of CASE committee, to carry on the excellent work of Gill Dolbear. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Gill for all her hard work over the last three years. CASE is in an excellent position with great accreditors from higher education and a wide range of clinical practice.

 

Medical ultrasound education is at a crossroads: exciting and challenging times lay ahead and it will be fascinating to see how training evolves. How will current programmes maintain their consistently high standards of education with the increasing pressures on clinical departments; will direct entry programmes - at both undergraduate and postgraduate level - continue to develop and will they prove popular with students and clinical stake holders? Will we see medical ultrasound apprenticeships increase the number of sonographers?

 

We don’t yet know the answers to these questions but what is certain is CASE’s role has never been more important, and we must all collaborate to ensure medical ultrasound education is fit for purpose, and sonographers produced by all routes must be safe, competent, practitioners who place the patient at the centre of care and possess the skills and knowledge to drive the profession forward for generations to come.

 

Simon Richards (& son)

CASE Chair

Report from the Outgoing-Chair & New VC

I’ve heard it said that, if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it during interesting times! My term of office as CASE Chair has certainly been interesting, as we have witnessed a significant period of change in ultrasound education and training in response to increased service delivery needs throughout the last three years.

 

During this time, CASE Committee members and accreditors have never failed to ‘step up to the plate’ to take on the accreditation of an increased number of focused courses and new direct entry programmes, to take part in Update Days and to re-write the CASE Handbook. A vast amount of work has been completed and we have all grown as a result. It has been my privilege to be part of such genuine and effective team-working.

 

The time has passed very quickly and, no doubt, there is still much for CASE to accomplish. I therefore look forward to supporting the new CASE Chair, Simon Richards, as he takes on the role. I would also like to take this opportunity to formally thank the CASE Co-ordinator, Sally Hawking, for the fantastic support that she provides to the Chair and to CASE as a whole; we could not do it without her!

Gill Dolbear

CASE Vice-Chair

 

New Member Organisation - CSP

We are delighted to announced that CSP have joined our consortium as a new member organisation.

 

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) has a long established emphasis on quality of professional practice and education.  The CSP acts as the professional representative for one of the largest AHP groups. Over recent years there has been an increasing focus on the use of point of care ultrasound imaging by Physiotherapists in the UK across a variety of clinical domains including Musculoskeletal, Women’s health, Neurology, Respiratory care. This is an evolving scene, with a gradually developing evidence base. The CSP recognised the importance of aspiring to the highest standards of education and clinical practice and promoting this to its members. CASE, as the inter-disciplinary organisation who leads on the highest standards in ultrasound education, was a natural organisation to approach and to collaborate with. 

 

It is hoped that the involvement of the CSP with CASE can enhance the CSP’s contribution to the development of point of care ultrasound services, thereby bringing both patient and clinical outcome benefits, alongside greater patient convenience and cost savings.  

 

Similarly, CASE can benefit from the critical mass of the CSP and its extensive experience of initiating professional and workforce developments, including through enacting a quality assurance and enhancement role through accrediting education programmes.

 

Stuart Wildman

CSP representative, CASE Committee

 

Annual Performance Monitoring Review

Report of APMR for Academic Year 2014-15

 

I am pleased to report another successful APMR cycle. All 15 universities submitted a satisfactory return. Excellent, accredited programmes of education are now offered across the whole of the UK and the number of students recruited can be seen in the table below. The range of clinical modules offered is also expanding with options for non-traditional students increasing.

 

Unfortunately, a recurring theme is more programmes are commenting on how workload pressures are increasing  within clinical placements; however, programme teams are recognising this and putting actions in place to ensure the student experience is maintained.

 

It is pleasing to see the increasing use of  clinical skills lab and the majority of programmes now have simulation embedded into their delivery.

 

 

CASE committee, in collaboration with SCoR, are developing the APMR questionnaire to ensure its currency as education evolves and it is expected this will be in place for the evaluation of the 16/17 academic year.

 

APMR Sub-Group Lead

Simon Richards

CASE Accreditor Update Day

Building on the success of last year, the 2016 Accreditor Update Day on 7th November was once again well attended by a mix of accreditors and course leaders and there was a full agenda to squeeze in. 

 

 

Our new Chair, Simon, took the helm for the first time and ran a dedicated session at the start of the day for accreditor training which took the attendees through a step-by-step guide to the role and responsibilities of being an accreditor.  Vice-Chair, Gill gave a presentation on accrediting focused courses while struggling with a sore throat (praise to Simon for stepping in to save her voice completely before the end!) and Gareth Bolton shared his experience of being a Lead Accreditor for a new Direct Entry course - these latter two presentations are available to download from the Accreditor Training section of the website.  Gill Harrison provided the interactive elements to keep everyone alert by running a couple of group-work sessions focussing on the key things to consider during a validation event and what conditions and recommendations are appropriate for CASE to impose.  Thanks go to all our presenters who did a terrific job!

 

We received some positive and helpful feedback afterwards with comments and suggestions for content that will feed into the planning process for next year.  If you are interested in coming along to the 2017 event, please keep an eye on the website for the date being announced or contact the CASE Co-ordinator.

 

Introducing Our New Website

The CASE website has been given a much-needed over-haul and we now have a fantastic new website which launched in October.  It is easier to find the information you want and there are lots of new features and a much better navigation process.  Since it's launch, visitor numbers are already on the up!

www.case-uk.org

 

 

Please do get into the habit of referring to the website often if you are looking for any information, forms or templates to use etc. as everything can now be found on the site - and if you can't find what you are after, just let us know! 

 

New Application Forms & Accreditor Report Templates

The Accreditor Day also provided a good platform to launch our revised forms and templates; where previously we had seperate versions for programmes,  focused courses and changes, this has now been condensed down into forms for either programmes or focused courses.

 

The new forms are all available to download from the website so please ensure you are using the right version when you next need to.

 

Helpful Information for Accreditors

 The new website features a section dedicated to our accreditors and we are building a space filled with lots of helpful information for accreditors to refer to.  To begin with, we have launched two exciting new items which we hope will be very useful:

  • A key part of any accreditation event is reviewing the documentation so we have developed a comprehensive list of what you should look out for to help assist you in the process.  The Word document is available to download from the website and can be used as a tick-list to work through when carrying out your assessments.
  • An on-line training lecture entitled 'The Role of the CASE Accreditor in the Accreditation Process' has been developed to give new accreditors (and those in need of a refresher) an understanding of what the responsibilities are. The lecture covers topics including documentation review, assessments, the accreditation event and giving feedback.  Audio is included, running time of 27 minutes.

Thanks to Committee member Gill Harrison for creating both of these items for CASE.

 

CASE ACCREDITORS

CASE would like to extend a warm welcome to four new accreditors who have joined our team since the last newsletter:

 

Jane Arezina

Jane is an experienced sonographer with 20 years’ experience in ultrasound clinical practice and has taught within a university environment since 2006 when she was employed as lecturer at the University of Leeds. Jane has been teaching clinically since 1995 and was a clinical mentor for students undertaking the postgraduate programmes at the University of Leeds from 1995-2006.  

 

Allison Harris

Allison has been involved with sonography training since 1995 when she first became a clinical supervisor for the ultrasound students at St John’s Hospital in Chelmsford.  Allison has worked as an agency sonographer and is currently Clinical Coordinator at City, University of London where she has worked since 2008.

 

 Prof Neil Pugh

Neil is a Consultant Medical physicist and head of the non-ionising section within Radiology, Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. He is curently President of the British Society for Gynaecological Imaging and is one of the IPEM representatives on the CASE Committee.

 

Dawn Walker

Dawn is currently the Programme Lead for both the MSc Medical Imaging and the MSc Mammography programmes at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, where she has worked for over five years, and is also an Honorary Visiting Lecturer at other hospitals across Scotland.

 

And our thanks go to Pam Parker, Jane Anderson and Annemarie Bevan-Edwards, who have resigned from being accreditors this year, for the time and effort they have devoted to CASE.  We are, however, pleased to say that Pam will remain very much involved with CASE as the Member Organisation representative for BMUS.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

CASE could not exist as it does without volunteer accreditors so if you are interested in joining our team then email us to request an application form. You will be given training and mentorship to ease you into the role and it will provide good evidence for your CPD.

 

Current CASE Accreditors

The following are our current accreditors; their input into the accreditation process is very much appreciated:

 

Jane Arezina University of Leeds

Katherine Barton University of Portsmouth

Gareth Bolton University of Cumbria

Peter Cantin Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust

Elizabeth Chapman Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline

David Cole Birmingham City University

Gillian Crofts University of Salford

Diane Dickson Glasgow Caledonian University

Gill Dolbear Canterbury Christ Church University

Theresa  Fail National School of Healthcare Science, Health Education West Midlands

Jan Forster Leeds General Infirmary
Ben Freedman Kings College Hospital, London
Elaine Gardiner Glasgow Caledonian University
Dr Valda Gazzard Treliske Hospital, Truro
Dr Vivien  Gibbs University of the West of England, Bristol
Sue Halson-Brown Kings College London
Allison Harris City, University of London

Gill Harrison City, University of London
Dr Bob Jarman Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead
Gerry Johnson University of Salford
Rosalind Lea Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Crewe
Dr Adam Lovick Sandwell General Hospital, West Bromwich

Frith Noble Dr Gray's Hospital, Elgin
Dr Crispian Oates Freeman Hospital, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Dr David  Oxborough Liverpool John Moores University

Prof Neil Pugh Cardiff University
Simon Richards University of Teesside
Jacquie Torrington City, University of London
Heather Venables University of Derby
Dawn Walker Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

Wendy Williams Llandough Hospital, Penarth
Jean Wilson University of Leeds
Rachel Wilson Hull & East Yorkshire NHS Hospital Trust

 

 

And Finally....

 

With so much going on in CASE right now and so many new things to tell you about, we would love to hear your feedback, please email us case@ipem.ac.uk.