The West Midlands Geriatric Medicine Rotation

The West Midlands is a large geographical area and our training rotation offers a wide experience in geriatric medicine training, from very ethnically and socioeconomically diverse areas, to rural populations. The purpose of the rotation is to train specialist geriatricians within the region who will then work as consultants within the region, developing and maintaining the services necessary to meet the needs of our ageing population. We are also the one of the largest training rotations in terms of number of doctors with 65 national training numbers (NTNs) allocated to the specialty within the region.

Trainees are appointed to the West Midlands rotation, not to individual posts on the rotations. During their time on the rotation, each trainee will spend twelve months each in five hospitals/trusts to allow them to gain experience towards gaining a CCT in Geriatric and General Medicine. The rotation dates are set to occur every twelve months, in the first week of September.

Since 2004, trainees have been surveyed annually to ascertain their preferences for their next placement. Trainees in ST4 and above can rank the hospitals in order of preference. ST3 placements are allocated by the STC because often there is limited time available between the training committee being made aware of new appointments and the need for trainees and Trusts to be informed of the finalised rotations. Three units within the region have specifically requested that one of their slots is allocated to an ST3 trainee (Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and Sandwell Hospital). Placement decisions are made by the training committee (including trainee representation) during May of each year on the following rules and priorities:

1. Those with special needs (i.e. less than full time trainees with children)
2. Those with specific training needs (PYA targets, trainees in difficulty)
3. Seniority along the rotation

With this taken into account, the training committee will also incorporate the following expectations:

1. Every trainee should expect to spend at least 1 year in a peripheral hospital
2. The training committee will try and keep people within the areas east, west and north if they would like. This may help with deciding where to settle. This cannot be done for the central area.
3. The training committee will try and accommodate specific training requirements in certain units
4. All trainees are expected to move on to a new training post at every rotation, regardless of seniority, unless there are exceptional training or family situations that would make this impractical.

The training committee will aim to percentage fill the placements, so the spread of unfilled posts is fair. Ideally no posts should be unfilled, but in the presence of vacancies in the rotation, it is important to make sure that individual units do not bear a disproportionate burden which could lead to concerns about service provision.

There are four broad recognised geographical areas to try to minimise travelling for individual trainees: Note some hospitals are considered as part of multiple geographical areas to accommodate a 5 year rotation, and rotation solely within these areas over a whole five year period cannot be guaranteed. Equally, trainees can request to move between these geographical areas if they so wish. these geographical areas if they so wish.

The aim is of all of this is to ensure that trainees receive the training needed to achieve their CCT.

The rotation has been successful with all trainees achieving CCT over the past twenty years, and subsequently going on to successfully obtain consultant posts in the specialty.

Page Last Updated 8th December 2020