Connections play an invaluable support in any radiographer’s career. 

The opportunity to share knowledge can be game-changing in the day-to-day work of any radiography professional - that is one of the driving factors behind the East of England Radiotherapy Network (RTN) Consultant Therapeutic Radiographer Group. 

Established as a peer support group, the East of England (EoE) RTN Consultant Therapeutic Radiographer Group consists of seven consultant and trainee consultant therapeutic radiographers from across NHS foundation trusts in the East of England.

Established in April 2024, the group began as a way for Therapeutic Radiographers eager to develop their knowledge and support their fellows to connect, share best practice and solve issues uniquely affecting the region.

Evolving out of the initial Radiotherapy Networks – established by NHS England – the East of England RTN Consultant Therapeutic Radiographer Group is the first of its kind. 

Since then, the group has gone from strength to strength.

Now, it is looking to undertake more supportive roles, like providing support and study opportunities for advanced therapeutic radiographers, as well developing a research project evaluating the impact of the consultant therapeutic radiographer role across the East of England.

Synergy dropped in on one of the Network’s all-important meetings to find out how the group rose from its humble beginnings to its current heights, and what lessons it learned along the way.

The impact of consultant therapeutic radiographers

In October 2019, the NHS England established regional radiotherapy networks across the country following the publication of the Radiotherapy Network Service Specification.

This publication established the aims of NHS England – to provide modern, advanced and innovative radiotherapy to patients in England.

By working together with colleagues, networks help trusts identify innovative solutions to the challenges facing radiotherapy. Members share best practice and learn from each other to substantially improve outcomes for patients, including higher cure rates and fewer side effects from treatment. 

As a result, 11 radiotherapy networks were established throughout England. While they were set up with clear goals in mind – improving access for patients, recruiting and training the radiotherapy workforce, improving patient experience, among others – it wasn’t long afterwards that the networks were rocked by the impact of Covid.

Quite a lot of these networks’ initial work was focused on supporting the department to maintain its regular operations, but as they continued to move forward and fight on new frontiers, it has turned its attention to national issues facing radiotherapy – most significantly, those of workforce recruitment and retention.

But while the focus on radiotherapy as a whole was welcome, issues of recruitment and retention were falling particularly hard on the therapeutic radiographers working to deliver radiotherapy.

Michelle Bates, senior programme manager for the East of England Radiotherapy Network, explained how she had entered into conversation with Kim Whitlock, Consultant Therapeutic Radiographer at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, to discuss a consultant radiographer-focused group.

Now, the team comprises Therapeutic Radiographers from across the east of England, including East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust.

It works to support consultant Therapeutic Radiographers, share best practice, and support the development of business cases for new roles, with key initiatives currently focused on an impact evaluation for consultant therapeutic radiographer roles.

The network is also working to establish regional study opportunities for advanced practitioners and to standardise job descriptions, all of which it hopes will support the workforce and help to provide evidence of effectiveness, as part of its efforts to influence workforce plans and support regional initiatives.

As a result of all these efforts, the group has spent considerable time looking at how the workforce functions and how it compares to other regions in England. Examining these details has helped the team understand how best it can grow the consultant therapeutic radiographer workforce and future-proof it, closing the gap.

Michelle explained: “Part of what we are ultimately aiming to do is to evidence the impact that consultant Therapeutic Radiographers have, because at the minute it's really difficult to put any business cases in for any additional workforce. We’re just trying to be ready so that when, hopefully, if some funding comes in place for additional workforce in future, we have a plan in place.”

‘Not solely clinical’

The East of England RTN Consultant Therapeutic Radiographer Group conducted its first meeting in April 2024, with many of its members having been in their roles for a fairly extensive period prior to it.

Kim explained, however, that many of the members had been “isolated” in their work, often the only practitioner working at consultant level in their department.

The Network therefore began as a way for people in these roles to come together across the region, support one another and enable “critical companionship” – not just in terms of practice, but in any kind of challenge they might come across.

By sharing how each person is doing, how they are overcoming the issues facing their department, they can then bring those solutions back to their own departments and into their own roles.

One of the main issues the group has been facing has been the specificity of their roles.

Initially, Kim said, many of these roles develop as part of workforce transformation, in part driven by a shortage of clinical oncology doctors, looking to support radiographers to work at the top of their licence, which in turns supports retention within the therapeutic radiography profession.

However, she added: “It’s also about us as individual practitioners, trying to ensure we’re not solely doing the clinical part, but that we also fulfil the other pillars of our roles.”

Kim is glad that more career support resources are becoming available across the country. This includes from the Society of Radiographers, which has published the Education and Career Framework establishing the role specifications for radiographers, and how the consultant role isn’t a purely clinical one. 

The Network is currently working on the methodology for an impact evaluation of consultant therapeutic radiographers across the region with a view to publication.

Achieving that, Kim explained, will support the request for continued funding to keep pushing the group forward into next year, too.

Another of its projects is focused on developing study opportunities, or a potential regional study day, to support advanced practitioners and those aspiring to become consultant Therapeutic Radiographers. 

Currently, the network group is in the process of seeking opinions on what staff members in the region would benefit from – the format and topic areas that would be most beneficial study opportunities to provide.

Kim continued: “Part of our day to day is looking at what we want to achieve individually within our roles, and regularly reviewing our job plans is crucial to ensure we are fulfilling our roles at consultant level practice. The recent guidance on scope of practice for advanced and consultant practitioners from the SoR is a useful tool. 

“It’s an opportunity for us to review our current scope of practice, and ensure that as a region we have parity in the way we are doing things. This will then help in terms of developing business cases, if our departments want to introduce new roles, because we’ll have a familiar standard that we can all work alongside.”

Finding its place 

But the role of the Network is much wider reaching, Michelle explained. By bringing together experts in the field, having conversations with the Integrated Care Board, and holding discussions about how best to support the workforce, the Network is helping to ensure that management is aware of the challenges.

Making recommendations about what the workforce should look like, however, takes a lot of work.

Gathering evidence is just the first step to delivering the care that patients deserve. 

However, Michelle added, the work doesn’t stop there.

“Unfortunately, we’re in a difficult position because the radiotherapy networks don’t have any sort of official remit regarding workforce. It’s more about that influence and discussion, and supporting the Integrated Care Boards to understand what their workforce plans need to look like,” she said.

“The other aspect is sharing business cases. There’s a lot of time spent building business cases in each Trust, and there’s a lot of information that can just be transferred to someone else’s business case. It’s about trying to save time, because then we can use a template with all the evidence, transfer it to each individual Trust’s documentation, and make life a little bit easier.”

Rachel Laker, consultant Therapeutic Radiographer at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, explained that she hopes that by collaborating across the network, the group would help strengthen regional links between managers and clinical staff.

By joining forces as a regional group to drive services forward, improve education and development for staff, they can collectively tackle the difficulties facing staff advancement.

“Hopefully by working together with managers, staff and the network, we can bring together funding, patient care and staff development, to improve recruitment and retention,” she said.

“We’re aiming to showcase the non-clinical pillars of our roles across the Network as well. Often, as the majority of our work is clinical, it can be difficult to give time to these other essential aspects of a consultant radiographer role.

We need to showcase the non-clinical pillars and for the potential of consultant therapeutic radiographer roles to be more visible across the network.”

Kim agreed with Rachel, that a goal of the group is to model the workforce structure.

By coming together as the EoE RTN Consultant Therapeutic Radiographers’ Network, they’re helping to demonstrate what careers might look like – a non-managerial route for progression. That will help support the current staff, while also engaging them to stay in the profession and develop into these consultant roles.

“It's about trying to support other radiographers so that they feel encouraged to progress as well,” Kim added.

‘Providing the support you need’

Kate Burton, a consultant Therapeutic Radiographer from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, emphasised the importance of the group for mutual education – pointing out that radiotherapy practices can differ from department to department.

But with the sharing of knowledge and ideas in the network, showcasing new developments from the clinical and patient experience side, the group may be able to support change in practice across the network to the benefit of service users. 

Michelle added that she would always recommend Therapeutic Radiographers interested in developing their own regional networks to reach out to radiotherapy network managers.

“We’re always keen to support any initiatives that would be useful across the Network,” she explained. “As Network Managers, we may be able to provide some admin support and may be able to help identify opportunities for funding to allow this groups to meet and progress their plans.

Your radiotherapy network manager is your first port of call. They can help get something set up and may be able to provide the support needed for regional initiatives, for example to keep the consultant therapeutic radiographer network group going. 

Whether it's sharing department job plans, or just helping to pick each other’s brains and get started in their new roles, the Network is a place of mutual support – one that keeps everyone from reinventing the wheel, time and time again.

One of the next steps for the group will be in establishing possible options for study opportunities for therapeutic radiographers working at or towards advanced and consultant level practice. So far, the team has sent questionnaires to local radiotherapy centres, asking what development opportunities would be of benefit. 

One of the challenges in establishing such an ambitious goal is engagement with the workforce. With the ongoing workforce shortage, finding the time and the effort to meet regularly, engage with wider networks, and continually develop through CPD can be challenging.

The group will also continue to assess the impact of their roles with the view to sharing the project nationally. Hopefully this could then support other regions to develop their own Network groups, aid them in improving their own workforce plans, and get national aid for supporting consultant practice.

“That way,” Rachel said, “we can fulfill all aspects of our roles, not just those involved in our clinical work.