Be bolder and recognise your expertise: radiographers share their experiences of the Centre for Advancing Practice

Gillian Thomas, consultant radiographer for brachytherapy at Poole Hospital

Encouraged to go through the CfAP by her manager

My manager received an email and said to me: ‘This might be useful for you. It’d be good for you to do this portfolio.’

I’m a radiographer, so obviously we were used to the accreditation process that the SoR does. I had been on the other end of that – I’d been an accreditor, I’d sign off the evidence. I didn’t think it was very robust, I have to say. So I assumed it was going to be a bit like that, but I was very naive. I got on the portal and realised it was a lot more robust.

When I joined I was in the first cohort, so it was very new. And it was a bit clunky because we were the guinea pigs. So initially, it was hard to find the information on how to use [the e-portfolio system] – for example, labelling our evidence. But I noticed that, as we went on, the resources started to become available and it got a lot easier to use.

At first I admit I was cursing my manager, because it was a lot of work – more than he appreciated, I think. So if anyone’s going to do it, they need to understand what to expect. They’ll need to set aside time. Some of the stuff you have to put on the portal requires you to be at work because it’s about finding evidence.

I felt that at least I knew that when I came out the other side, I could hold my head up high – I felt I was advanced, because it was official. It is a massive amount of work, but it’s worth it. If more people do it, it then becomes a recognised badge. When I started out it was new – no one knew what my badge was. But now, more badges are being seen, so I think it’s becoming more well known.

Jancis Kinsman, advanced practitioner specialising in lung, image-guided radiotherapy and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy at the Bristol Cancer Institute

Says she was well supported by Melanie Clarkson

My manager suggested that I do the supported e-portfolio route to advanced practice as I already had an MSc and had been working in an advanced practice role for many years, so I applied and Melanie Clarkson at Sheffield Hallam University was appointed my educational supervisor. She was great – really supportive and knowledgeable.

At the beginning of the process, you have to do a Learning Needs Analysis and go through it with your supervisor, and I did what Melanie says we all do – we all have a tendency to be a bit British about it and say: ‘Oh, I’m not really that clever, am I really working at that level?’ So she spends quite a lot of time encouraging people to be a little bit bolder and recognise their level of expertise.

It felt a bit daunting at the time. Portfolios are always quite tricky – there are 38 capabilities that you must map against, and you have to make sure that you have enough evidence to support each of those. My role is quite varied, crossing three areas, so I needed to make sure that I could demonstrate advanced practice across all those areas and all the capabilities.

My role has quite a strong technical element that maybe doesn’t fit some of the capabilities quite so obviously. I think what you have to do with all of your evidence is just bring it back to ‘what do you do? How does what you do have an impact on the patient’s clinical care at the end of the day?’ So, for example, if you’re reviewing images and making a decision on those, what’s the clinical impact of that? Then that makes it easier to fit it to the criteria. You also have to keep that in mind when you’re writing your critical reflections, case studies and critical narrative.

Going through this process hasn’t changed my job appreciatively as I was already working as an advanced practitioner, but I think accreditation is important for public confidence in health professionals. I also think it helps other professions recognise the level that we are working at too.

I think it has spurred me on to try and develop my role further, and to put myself forward for opportunities that I might not have been brave enough to do before.

Sabina Khan, Macmillan consultant head and neck Therapeutic Radiographer in late effects

Found the CfAP helped her formalise her training

After being an AHP who specialises in head and neck cancer for more than 10 years, it was incredibly challenging to find a way to formalise my training and competency without undertaking the complete ACP MSc. This was particularly difficult as I had already completed a PGcert in prescribing and certain clinical practice training within my trust.

For years, I’d been contacting different organisations and universities and the outcome was never clear. Until one day I was introduced to Mel [Clarkson] who basically said: ‘Yeah we can do this; we can go through it and see if there are any gaps in your knowledge and where you can credit it.’ And it was as simple as that. And that was the first time I’d had somebody who could understand what I’d been going through, but also find me a solution in the context of my training and background. 

What the portfolio method allowed me to do was look at everything I’d done and actually realise I’d done a lot in the last 10 years, and also learned a lot. So it was a really good way of reflecting on our current practice, and whether there were any gaps in my knowledge and, fortunately for me, there wasn’t. But had there been, I knew Mel would be able to facilitate some form of training or guide me to the right place to fix that knowledge gap. 

It also gives the trust and the department an opportunity to see how much you really are doing and whether you need more support, or whether you’re able to facilitate your workload as well, and whether you meet the four pillars. Because quite often when you are restricted at work, you might be focusing on your clinical pillar a bit more than your education pillar or your R&D [research and development]. But I was very lucky, because all four pillars were met. It was a great opportunity just to ensure that I had some accreditation to what I was doing.