The new electron linear accelerator facility, which offers an independent radiotherapy calibration service and a unique research facility.The NHS's healthcare scientists punch above their weight. Although they account for just 5% of the health service workforce, their work is linked to 80% of patients' clinical diagnoses.
Historically though, the career paths and education and training of the 50,000 NHS scientists who come from 45 different scientific backgrounds, has been adhoc.
But now the healthcare scientists have their own defined career paths, which can take somebody starting off in a staff support role right to the top to become a consultant clinical scientist.
The pathways, backed up by a training and education framework, are part of Modernising Scientific Careers (MSC), which has already been three years in the making and is still being implemented. The intention is that, once fully introduced, healthcare scientists will be a sustainable and flexible workforce that can meet the future demands of the NHS and respond to changes brought about by science and technology.
Chief scientific officer professor Sue Hill says: "We recruit some of the best science graduates in the country but we were not developing them to their full potential.
"I think we now know the value of healthcare scientists working in the health system – we have pulled this valuable resource out of the shadows and placed them centre stage so that their knowledge, skills and expertise is more explicit and they can fully make their contribution.
"I think through this programme we have also ensured the sustainability and fitness for purpose in the future of the healthcare scientists' workforce to respond in a health system which is going to be driven by science and technology."
The MSC allows scientists to move between different scientific specialities, broadening their experience and creating a more flexible workforce.
MSC, which has been described as an ambitious and "complex workforce change programme", had to take into account NHS staff and patients, as well as all four UK countries, two Whitehall departments, the higher education sector, professional bodies, the royal colleges and sector skills councils.
Hill says one of the key obstacles was building new relationships with higher education: "We had to enter into and establish new partnerships between higher education and the NHS in particular, which weren't there before.
"We also had to make sure that people understood what they were letting go of, what they had before, and how this would be better and more flexible and was more about the future."
This article is published by Guardian Professional. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to receive regular emails and exclusive offers.
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