Foundation and specialty training
Every year we welcome hundreds of medical graduates to work with us as part of their two-year Foundation training with Health Education England North East (HEENE).
As a Foundation doctor with Northumbria Healthcare Trust, you will gain experience of working in a variety of specialities and hospital sites. We also host academic Foundation trainees and Psychiatry Foundation Fellowship trainees.
Many of the Foundation Year 1 posts are based at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital (NSECH) in Cramlington. These consist of Respiratory, General Surgery, Trauma and Orthopaedics and Acute Medicine. Every Foundation trainee will do at least one rotation through our Emergency Department which will further enhance your training experience with us. Our emergency care consultants work 24/7 and provide hands-on supervision and support. Other specialties such as Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics and Anaesthetics are also based at NSECH, thereby offering unparalleled training opportunities.
Foundation trainees may also work into North Tyneside General hospital (Care of the Elderly, Palliative Care, Gastroenterology, Mental Health Services for Older People, Diabetes/Haematology/Rheumatology, General Surgery) and Wansbeck General Hospital (Care of the Elderly, Palliative Care, Acute Medicine, Cardiology), as well as within the neighbouring mental health Trust and local General Practices.
The latest placements are detailed here.
On-call commitments and shift patterns vary according to the post.
Some posts afford the opportunity to attend theatre sessions and outpatient clinics. All specialities liaise across all sites to support our postgraduate doctors in training.
During Foundation training, you will also benefit from formal teaching (including SIM) covering all aspects of the curriculum as well as the Better Doctors Better Patients and professionalism programmes (incorporating QI, research).
All sites have a Doctors’ Mess with free hot drinks machine, kitchen facilities and lockers, a library with hot desks, computers and quiet area, plus changing facilities with showers.
The new Health and Wellbeing Centre at NSECH encompasses meeting rooms, social areas, hot desks and computers, the Naked Deli for hot food and a new gym which is available to join. Plans are underway for further wellbeing centres at our other acute sites.
We are passionate about providing you with a first-class education and training experience as you begin your career in the NHS, with a robust tutoring system in place.
Supervision and support
We have a faculty of appointed specialist tutors who will ensure that you are well looked after, supervised appropriately and offered regular feedback. As a Foundation trainee you will work through a network of appointed Educational Supervisors who are responsible for your training and support. We are constantly driving standards through a quality management programme.
Our trainers themselves are continuously trained and assessed so that you can expect the highest standards of development. In addition, we will ensure that any postgraduate doctor with additional training needs or difficulties will be very well supported throughout their time at Northumbria.
Cognisant of the importance of peer to peer support, we have an F1/F2 buddying system in place.
As a Trust, we strongly encourage our postgraduate doctors in training to help us to improve the quality of experiences offered. Opportunities come via acting as Foundation representatives at Foundation Delivery Group meetings and participation in medical education delivery group meetings.