Abstract

The NHS faces increasing pressures to deliver higher quality service and care with diminishing budgets and cost-saving requirements year-on-year. This research explores attitudes towards models of CPD and CPD activity of NHS educators and the levels of engagement of individuals in their professional learning. Models of professional learning in the NHS in England continue to be a source of heated debate, particularly in relation to the currency and relevance of the knowledge and skills expected of staff responsible for programmes of professional learning development in the sector. At the same time, the teaching profession in general continues to undergo constant change as political and social landscapes shift. Increasing pressures are being placed on the finances of individuals and organisations regarding budgets for Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Preoccupations with ensuring value for money are high on the managerial agenda. Many qualified educators working in non-standard education settings such as the NHS see themselves as teachers whose subject specialism is the discipline and practice of Education. No more, no less. While others regard themselves as ‘dual professionals,’ for example, clinicians who also teach. In the case of the latter group, emphasis is often placed more upon their development of their professional knowledge in their original discipline or subject, rather than upon their professional knowledge of the discipline of Education. A consequence of this, is often that the engagement in professional learning and CPD of NHS staff who teach can differ in remarkably diverse ways and to varying degrees.
This research begins with a detailed account of several narrative accounts in professional practice encountered in the context of my own work as an educator and supporter of professional learning and CPD for NHS staff. It examines concepts of professional practice, professional learning, professional knowledge, and knowledge ‘transfer’ in the context of the NHS. Through personal accounts gathered by conducting individual qualitative interviews, the research addresses the ways in which professionals in the NHS in roles like mine attribute value and purpose to their own professional learning and CPD activity in this context. It also considers the ways these individuals make sense of their professional practice as both educators and subject specialists. Finally, this thesis offers insights into where responsibility is currently seen to reside in relation to professional learning and the provision of CPD in relation to the individual, the employer or both. The consequences of current models of CPD are critically examined and discussed in relation to contributions from relevant literature in this field of study in Chapter 2 and in subsequent chapters of this thesis. The findings of this research contribute to discussions around the value of educational practice in NHS organisations, as reported by managerial teams and by the practitioners engaged in professional learning and development across the sector.