Postgraduate Medicine consultancy

Consultancy services

The School of Postgraduate Medicine networks with NHS and independent healthcare providers, voluntary organisations, charities, patient groups, pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Our academic staff have many years' experience and all have a specialist clinical background so understand our clients priorities.

Consultancy is usually short term, one-off projects ranging from a day to several months. Examples of work undertaken by the School include practice development work, provision of strategic advice, independent appraisals and evaluations, expert witness services, feasibility studies, product development, interpretation/analysis, and advising businesses and government departments on development issues.

We welcome approaches to collaborate with other organisations on consultancy projects at any level. For further details please contact Cheri Hunter (Head of School)

Educational consultancy

The School of Postgraduate Medicine has extensive experience of offering consultancy within the following areas:

• Learning needs analysis, skills audit and workforce planning
  
• Leadership and team development
  
• Clinical skills development
  
• Work-based learning
  
• Clinical supervision
  
• Accreditation of external courses
• Developing frameworks for GPw SI training
• Portfolio development
  
• Multimedia learning resources 

Other expertise

Academics within the School have particular expertise in respect of:

• Clinical
• Anticoagulation
• Child Health
• Dermatology
• Respiratory Medicine
• Thromboprophylaxis
• Wound Management

• Professional Development
• Critical appraisal skills 
• Coaching 
• Health Law and Ethics 
• Leadership and Management 
• Team Development

• Practice Development
• Service redesign and workforce planning
• Implementation of new models of care
• Extended role practitioners
• Implementation and accreditation of GPwSI services

Our experts will bring specialist skills to the areas you require, enabling you to find practical and innovative solutions to your needs.

Bespoke Education

We can customise education and training to meet a client’s specified needs, for example developing bespoke professional development programmes for our partner NHS trusts and other valued clients. Provision can cover a wide range of subject areas, however, a recent example include: accreditation at Master’s level of an in-house Senior Leaders Development Programme for clinical managers developed by West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust. A facilitator from the School of Postgraduate Medicine worked with the Trust to assess the quality and level of the education and volume of student learning and aligned this with the amount of credit to be awarded and decided to put the whole provision forward for external accreditation. This programme is being supported by the East of England Strategic Health Authority.

Practice Development

Practice development is a broad term that covers a range of approaches to health care improvement work including service redesign and NHS Reform.

The dermatology team at the PGMS has experience in providing consultancy and advisory services for PCTs and healthcare providers. The PGMS has developed the first inter-professional minor skin surgery course nationally to include supervised practice and competency-based assessment and is able to advise about the development of assessment tools in this area to enable commissioners to be sure that their providers of skin surgery services can meet national guidance criteria.

Case study – dermatology

One of our Principal Lecturer’s who is also a Consultant Dermatologist has been working with Luton PCT to provide independent clinical advice to support their review of dermatology services.

Amanda Yeates (Service Improvement Manager) from Luton PCT says.

Luton PCT acknowledges that the knowledge and skills that this consultancy has brought to the process are as follows:

• A clear understanding of the guidance around commissioning services for people with skin conditions
• A robust knowledge of the ‘Needs Assessment’ process needed to underpin the process
• Information about service redesign and care pathways to deliver high quality care
• Specific detailed knowledge of accreditation and quality frameworks; particularly in respect of GPwSI accreditation and national guidance for providing skin cancer services.

Case study – wound management

The School of Postgraduate Medicine also has a proven track record in providing bespoke training for healthcare Industry. Smith & Nephew Healthcare has worked with another Principal Lecturer from the School for the past 5 years to provide an intensive, week-long, international summer school; Advances in Wound Management Practice for their Clinical Advisors and key customers from around the world. Clinical Affairs Manager, Sara Rowan chooses to use expertise from the School of Postgraduate Medicine because:

“they are responsive, knowledgeable, well regarded in tissue viability and work hard to make things happen. The course has been a great success and continually evolves to keep up to date with the needs of a demanding expert audience”.

In a separate project, Ed Tomlinson, Integrated Customer Solutions Manager, Smith & Nephew Healthcare summarises the value of expertise from the School of Postgraduate Medicine as:

"We recently needed some independent input and advice on a major new educational initiative. The postgraduate team responded very quickly and professionally with a clear appreciation of the business context involved. This has added significant value to the discussions and our ability to progress the project on a nationwide basis."  

If you think that the School of Postgraduate Medicine can help you with consultancy projects please contact

Cheri Hunter

Head of School

F423, Health Research Building

University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield. AL10 9AB. England.

Office: +44(0)1707 284958

Mobile: +44(0)7736 660696

Email: c.1.hunter@herts.ac.uk