I have the best job in the world, and people often ask me a) how I got here and b) how to get here themselves. Now, I have gone a long and circuitous route as you can see below, so I’m not necessarily the best person to ask, although personally I think the circuitous route had quite a lot of unexpected benefits:

That said, when I was a lass the world was much more straight forward with the routes and options being much more restricted and a much greater need to establish your own pathway. There was only one place where you could register, and that was with the Health and Care Professions Council (which even had a slightly different name), where yo reach registration in 1 of 3 ways:

• Registration as a Clinical Scientist via the Association of Clinical Scientists (route one) – this was the route I followed as a grade A trainee, which later developed into the STP (Scientific Training Programme) as offered by the National School of Healthcare Science
• Registration as a Clinical Scientist via the Association of Clinical Scientists (route two) – this route still exists and it involves the following ‘those who may not have completed the formal training associated with Route ONE, but have extensive experience in the relevant field sufficient to demonstrate our competences based on a cross referenced portfolio of evidence, and (if approved) an interview.’ This is usually for those entering the field with a PhD who then spend some time working in the role of a supervised pre-registered clinical scientist with the supervision of a registered Clinical Scientist or medic.
• Registration as a Biomedical Scientist via the Institute of Biomedical Science

All of these routes led to you being registered with the HCPC and the ability to practice as an independent practitioner. The market place has changed a lot since then however and the profession is now filled with so many opportunities and entry points to permit an enriched career progression. So in order to celebrate National Pathology week I’m hoping to answer some of questions about how to become a Healthcare Scientist and sign post to some great resources that others have created.

Although in many ways I still believe the system was great when I joined, it cannot be denied that there were a number of flaws. There was no pathway as such, it was incredibly difficult to move from a starting non-registration requiring position to registration and onwards. Also, once you had your registration there was no structured progression route. It was hard to demonstrate pathways to Consultant Clinical Scientist posts, Advanced Practice posts didn’t exist, and so it was also difficult to demonstrate parity or equity of access. Thus modernising scientific careers was born, an example is below although it’s been through many interactions since. Many aspects of this are still in place, but some like the clinical academic careers route are still being developed, whilst others like the apprenticeships have been developed significantly further. Other entry routes, like T-Levels in Healthcare Science, didn’t exist at all when this was last updated.

This means that anyone wanting to entering the career now has a lot more points at which they can enter, A-Level equivalent (T-Levels), undergraduate, post-graduate, post PhD. There also routes available to move from stage to stage in a variety of ways. Having so much choice can be a little overwhelming however, so I thought I would try (with the help of the wonderful Dr Jo Horne) to collate some of the different info in one place in case it might help.

Apprenticeships

Apprenticeship standards change frequently and are tweaked based on what we learn and the workforce needs. They are great however as they are not only entry points, but progression points no matter what level you are coming in at. The Level 7 apprenticeship will also soon be a thing, and so for a Clinical Scientist like me, training may look a bit more like it did when I was a grade A trainee. They are also great as you can balance progression with your needs in terms of non-work demands, as you have control about when you choose to access them, permitting a lot of flexibility.

Entry Overview Clinical Microbiology and Clinical Virology

Dr Jo Horne has been pulling together some really amazing infographics on healthcaresciencenews.co.uk in order to help clarify not only the apprenticeship routes, but also the direct entry routes into the various formal and informal training programmes that can lead to HCPC registration. She is also actively working with Healthcare Scientists via her coaching website to help support them in their careers and making career progression decisions.

Other Routes to Clinical Scientist Registration

Finally, I’ve previously posted about my experience applying for Higher Specialist Scientific Training programmer equivalence. This is a way of demonstrating that you have an equivalent skill set to those coming out of the HSST programme, which is a formal training programme to support training to consultant level.

There is an equivalent scheme for equivalence to the Scientist Training Programme, but this isn’t the only route to registration as a Clinical Scientist if you haven’t gone through the formal STP programme. I think there is an understandable excitement and engagement with the STP equivalence programme and I am a big supporter of that engagement. I do however think we have to be conscious of the word equivalence. If the STP equivalence process is about demonstrating equivalence to the STP then not everyone will be able to go down this pathway, as the training they have to demonstrate is very broad and, with the new curriculum, very clinical. This doesn’t mean that they should not be able to gain registration as a Clinical Scientist. As I said at the very start, the ACS route 2 existed when I was training and it still exists now. If someone has vast amounts of specialist knowledge and meets the requirement for having practiced in a clinical setting then they may not be suitable for equivalence, but more than suitable for route two via the ACS. I’ve know a number of candidates put in a lot of time and end up being delayed by going for the more well known AHCS route and struggling, when they would have been much more suitable for the ACS route. I think we need to talk more about these alternate routes, and the ones that are available across the profession to recognise advanced practice, in order to support people applying for the right schemes and not getting disillusioned in the process. The route needed will be varied based on the individual but the end point is the same, and we should therefore embrace all of these options.

Hopefully some of these links will be helpful to those of you who are looking to enter this awesome career, and for those of you who are already working as a HCS, maybe they will inspire you to take the next exciting step in your career. Please let me know if helpful and thanks again to Jo.

All opinions in this blog are my own