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Clinical Supervisors

What is a Clinical Supervisor? 

Trainees on course

Trainees on course

Each trainee should have a named clinical supervisor for each placement who is responsible for ensuring that appropriate clinical supervision of the trainee’s day-to-day clinical performance occurs at all times, with regular feedback. This will usually be a consultant within seconday care placements and a GP Trainer within Primary care placements. Clinical Supervisors may supervise Retainer doctors, F2 doctors, or Specialty Trainees in their first or second years of GP Specialist Training doing a General Practice attachment.  Clinical supervision has been used in mental health services for many years, and describes the framework for regular, structured encounters reflecting on casework in the context of the post or specialty in which the health professionals are working and aims to identify areas of best practice and developmental needs. Clinical supervision has an important clinical governance role setting and improving professional standards of care.

Becoming a Clinical Supervisor 

In order to become a GP Clinical Supervisor you will first need to attend a

2-day Prospective Clinical Supervisor Course.

The dates for the next Potential Clinical Supervisor Courses held at the Severn Deanery are:

  • 24th and 25th April, 2012                 To enrol go to our Events page and scroll to April, 2012.
  • 19th and 20th July, 2012                  To enrol go to our Events page and scroll to July, 2012.
  • 24th and 25th October, 2012            To enrol go to our Events page and scroll to October, 2012.

 Once you have completed the Potential Clinical Supervisor Course you need to apply to become an

Approved Clinical Supervisor 

Experienced Clinical Supervisor

Each Clinical Supervisor has to attend a one day Experienced Clinical Supervisor Course every 3 years. These courses are free and held at Severn Deanery. The next Experienced Clinical Supervisors Courses are

  • 16th May, 2012                                  To enrol go to our Events page and scroll to May, 2012.
  • 21st November, 2012                          To enrol go to our Events page and scroll to November, 2012.

The Re-approval spreadsheet is the current list of approvals for GP Educational Supervisors (Trainers) and Clinical Supervisors in the Severn Deanery compiled on 17th March, 2011. 

Becoming an Out of Hours Clinical Supervisors 

Trainees must be supervised by a Deanery approved clinical supervisor while they are undertaking OOH work. The following list of OOH Doctors are approved to provide clinical supervision to GPSTs doing OOH sessions without having to complete any additional course:

  • Current approved GP Educational Supervisors
  • OOH doctors who have stopped being GP Trainers within the last 2 years
  • GPs who have completed a Potential Educational Supervisor Course with the intention of becoming approved as an educational supervisor
  • Current Training Programme Directors (TPDs) or OOH Doctors who have stopped being TPDs in the past two years.
  • GPs who are current educational supervisors for retained foundation doctors with attendance at a specific OOHs clinical supervision training session
  • Partners and associates working in training practices who are currently providing OOH supervision with the submission of evidence of current competency (appendix 2)
  • Further information

All other OOH doctors who wish to be OOH Clinical Supervisors of GP STs will need to satisfactorily complete a Deanery provided/approved course.

It is recommended that potential OOH supervisors of GP Specialty Trainees will have completed at least 20 sessions working for their current OOH provider

This course will run over two sessions through which participants will:

  • Appreciate the current system of GP training and why and how OOH experience is included
  • Understand the roles and responsibilities of the OOH Clinical Supervisor
  • Confirm the features of effective learning and teaching
  • Develop the skills of effective clinical supervision
  • Practice how to identify, understand and tackle problems

 Re-approval of OOHs Clinical Supervisors

The COGPED paper states that “ Deaneries should ensure that Clinical Supervisors in OOH maintain and update their skills and are subject to a three yearly re-approval of their role, based on the feedback from GP registrars.

The Deanery should maintain a list of approved OOH clinical supervisors that is cross-checked annually with the various OOH providers.

The Deanery will facilitate update sessions that can be delivered centrally at the Deanery or at the various OOH provider organisations. Clinical supervisors will be required to attend at least one update session every three years prior to re-approval and to apply for re-approval but submitting a reflective account on their performance as a clinical supervisor that includes reflection on feedback from trainees.

Work is ongoing with several OOHs providers to ensure that they maintain a lists of approval clinical supervisors and develop systems (ideally on line) to enable GPSTs to book OOH sessions directly with the OOH provider. This will be looked at as part of the QA visits to OOH providers that are now in place.

Essential Information

If you would like to arrange an informal chat with the Associate Postgraduate Dean for your area, please contact the appropriate Administrator: