The Royal College of psychiatrists curricular for core and advanced training state that a clinical supervisor is a consultant, senior lecturer or professor who has been appointed to a substantive consultant position. The General Medical Council has set out details of the responsibilities of clinical and educational supervisors as well as the standards needed for approval.
Clinical Supervisors
The GMC defines a clinical supervisor as "a trainer who is responsible for overseeing a specified trainee's clinical work throughout a placement in a clinical or medical environment and is appropriately trained to do so. He or she will provide constructive feedback during the placement. He or she will lead on providing a review of the trainees clinical or medical practice throughout the placement that will contribute to the educational supervisors report on whether the trainee should progress to the next stage of their training"
To achieve the above there needs to be a high level of overlap between the timetables of the supervisor and trainee. In addition to regular clinical supervision the timetable will also include one hour per week of protected developmental supervision.
The GMC has set out standards for clinical supervisors drawn from the Academy of Medical Educators (AoME) A Framework for the Professional Development of Postgraduate Medical Supervisors. Clinical supervisors are required to meet five of the seven areas. These are
a. Ensuring safe and effective patient care through training.
b. Establishing and maintaining an environment for learning.
c. Teaching and facilitating learning.
d. Enhancing learning through assessment.
e. Continuing professional development as an educator.
Within the West Midlands, all trusts that provide training are required to ensure that their clinical supervisors meet the above standards and that clinical supervisors are appraised on an annual basis for this role. Health Education West Midlands receives information from trusts and has a list of those consultants who meet the standards to be a clinical supervisor.
Approval of Clinical Supervisors for core training.
It is the local clinical/cluster tutors in conjunction with medical and clinical directors who identify the placements for core trainees, ensuring that trainees are able to rotate through a series of placements in order to meet the requirements of the curriculum. The clinical supervisors must meet the above GMC standards. The clinical supervisor will be required to submit details of their post to the school of psychiatry for approval and thereafter on an annual basis. If there is any significant change to the placement, for example as result of service reconfiguration, the trainer must immediately inform the clinical tutor and submit a new post description for approval.
Educational Supervisors
An educational supervisor is defined by the GMC as "a trainer who is selected and appropriately trained to be responsible for the overall supervision and management of trainees trajectory of learning and educational progress during the placement or series of placements. Every trainee must have a name educational supervisor. The educational supervisor helps the trainee to plan their training and achieve agreed learning outcomes. He or she is responsible for the educational agreement and the bringing together all relevant evidence to form a summative judgement at the end of the placement or series of placements".
The GMC requires that educational supervisors meet all seven of the standards in the AoME framework, that is the five requirements for clinical supervisors listed above and
f. Supporting and monitoring educational progress.
g. Guiding personal and professional development.
As with the clinical supervisors, within the West Midlands trusts are required to ensure that consultants with educational supervision responsibilities meet the standards and are appraised annually for this role.
Educational supervision for core trainees.
Each core psychiatry trainee is allocated to an educational supervisor. In some trusts these supervisors are called College tutors. The supervisor will meet the trainee at intervals through each year. Prior to the ARCP, the educational supervisor will review the trainees portfolio, their self-assessment and the midpoint and end point reports completed by clinical supervisors before completing the educational supervisors report.
Educational supervision for advanced trainees.
In all of the advanced training programmes, the training programme director maintains an educational overview of the progress of each of the trainees. The training programme director may additionally nominate either the current clinical supervisor or another consultant as the educational supervisor.
The school of psychiatry requires that all consultants who are advanced clinical supervisors also meet the standard to be an educational supervisor.
Prior to ARCP, there will be a review of the clinical supervisors mid and end of post report, the trainees portfolio and self-assessment. This will be undertaken by two training consultants who will then complete a portfolio review report. This report summarises progress towards achieving the competencies set out in the curriculum.
Approval of Supervisors for Advanced Trainees
The arrangements for approving posts for the advanced trainees are detailed in this linked document Approval of Advanced Psychiatry Trainers.
Last updated by Dr Andreas Kitsios Aug 2020