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- Medical Schools Council and Dental Schools Council join HEAT
We are very pleased to announce that the Medical Schools Council (MSC) and the Dental Schools Council (DSC) will be joining HEAT as Core members from August 2024.
The MSC have an overview of the outreach delivered by all Medical Schools in the UK. This is outreach that feeds into the government’s NHS Workforce Plan, which aims to double the number of medical school places by 2031. The NHS Workforce Plan also sets out ambitions to expand the dental undergraduate training places by 40% to more than 1,100 per year by 2031 to 2032. We are delighted to be the main data system to be used to monitor and evaluate this strategically important work.
A Partnership Model
The MSC and DSC will be using the database to receive outreach data from all Medical and Dental Schools in the UK. HEAT’s data sharing functionality is already able to provide a secure way to do this.
The HEAT Steering Group approved a model whereby database accounts for Medical and Dental Schools will be created as sub-user groups of their overarching University’s database account. This will allow secure and customisable data sharing between the Medical and Dental School and their own University HEAT accounts, as well as sharing between the Medical and Dental Schools and the MSC or DSC.
A consistent approach to Medical and Dental School outreach data recording
We are aware that some Medical and Dental Schools are already using HEAT, whereas others are not. For those who are, there is currently variation in how this is being done.
We now want to move towards a consistent approach to the way data for Medical and Dental Schools is recorded on HEAT across the UK. This will enable aggregate reporting, both by the MSC, DSC and the HEAT central team, giving a valuable national picture of Medical and Dental School outreach delivery and underpinning future impact evaluation.
Whilst this will inevitably create some additional work for our Point of Contacts (PoCs) within member universities with Medical and Dental Schools, we will do all we can to keep this as low as possible. We will contact PoCs in due course with more information, but our initial plans are outlined below.
Working plan for on-boarding Medical and Dental Schools
We intend to support our PoCs with the process of on-boarding their Medical and/or Dental School by:
- Supporting with the initial set-up of the Medical and/or Dental School sub-user group accounts, creating these on behalf of member universities with Medical and Dental Schools, giving PoCs access
- Creating guidance on how these sub-user group accounts should be managed, including how data sharing should be configured
- Working with the MSC and DSC to ensure our guidance meets their reporting needs, and also give PoCs the opportunity to feed back before the guidance is finalised to ensure it also meets their wider University’s reporting needs
- Delivering training to Medical and Dental Schools within HEAT member universities, in partnership with the MSC and DSC, to reduce the burden on PoCs to deliver that training independently. PoCs will also be invited to join this session
- Ensuring PoCs are informed of all important HEAT related communications between the MSC/DSC and Medical/Dental Schools, so that they can co-ordinate with their Medical/Dental Schools if needed
We hope you are as excited as us about the research potential of this collaboration. If you do have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with HEAT Support.
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