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Attachment or project supervisor
The day to day work of a registrar and/or specific projects may be supervised by a project supervisor who may be a consultant or another senior professional with knowledge of public health. This allows registrars to work in organisations outside the NHS such as local authorities or government departments. The role is more limited and does not require overall coordination of training, detailed assessments or remediation measures.
Minimum requirements for being an attachment supervisor or project supervisor:
- Be committed to providing high quality training.
- Be a consultant or senior professional working in an area relevant to public health.
- Work closely with the educational supervisor to provide suitable induction arrangements for registrars and to receive information on the registrar's learning needs at the start of each attachment and pass information on progress to the educational supervisor.
- Provide regular supervision of the registrar with regular and timely feedback on work in their related field.
- Be familiar with curricular requirements and understand the roles and responsibilities involved in training in public health.
- Have experience in training and supervision of projects.
- Provide regular and timely feedback to the educational supervisor about the registrar and their performance.
- Be familiar and comply with local Deanery training requirements.
Supervisors should show a commitment to training by:
- Being readily accessible to the trainees for whom they have been appointed supervisor.
- Regularly attending educational and supervisor development events and FPH and regional training conferences.
- Assessing the learning needs of trainees attached to them on an individual basis and drawing up a realistic and achievable learning plan with them.
- Using a written framework for training with regular review and constructive feedback.
- Being able and willing to identify and ensure delegation of appropriate tasks and responsibilities to the trainee.
- Facilitating learning opportunities not available locally to ensure exposure to the full range of required competencies.
Responsibilities of project supervisors:
- Meeting with trainee and core supervisor in advance of the attachment, discussing the potential learning opportunities available and agreeing the general aims and objectives to be met during the proposed attachment.
- Discussing the trainee's perceived learning needs in relation to the specific attachment and agreeing priorities within these, taking account of other commitments the trainee may have e.g. preparing for the MFPH examinations, teaching commitments etc. It is desirable that the educational supervisor should also have an input at this stage.
- Negotiating a written learning contract with the trainee for that particular attachment which both parties should sign. It is the responsibility of the trainee to draw up the document. The document should also be discussed with the academic tutor and educational supervisor.
- Agreeing and scheduling regular review meetings of sufficient length (approx. 1 hr) in order to monitor and assess progress towards achieving the agreed aims and objectives.
- Ensuring that the trainee is given responsibility for undertaking specific tasks e.g. carrying out a study, preparing and presenting the findings or reports appropriate to his/her level/stage of training and abilities.
- Encouraging, supporting and providing constructive feedback to the trainee on specific tasks.
- Identifying gaps in the trainee's general experience or specific subject areas and also flagging up when certain tasks or activities have ceased to have further meaningful training value. The supervisor and trainee should then discuss the matter with the educational supervisor and agree the action to be taken.
- Conducting a final review of the attachment with the trainee, encouraging and facilitating a two-way feedback on the experience. Both parties should sign a written report summarising the key issues raised during the review of the attachment learning contract aims and objectives. The academic tutor should also have an input to the review process. Copies of the written review which will contribute to the annual assessment of training and appraisal progress process (RITA) assessment should be sent to the educational supervisor, and the co-ordinator of training where appropriate.
