Population Health Fellowship – Eligibility Criteria
|
|
Essential |
Desirable |
|
|
Academic |
Bachelor’s degree 2.1 and above (equivalent qualification) Evidence of demonstrable interest in scientific research and evidence-based practice Evidence of continuing professional development
|
Additional qualifications (e.g., degrees and postgraduate qualifications) Conference participation and/or presentations Has contributed to research Academic publications (e.g., peer reviewed journals, abstracts, posters, book chapters) |
|
|
Experience |
Clinicians |
Wider workforce* |
Can evidence contribution to successful service improvement (e.g., achieving service change, Trust level awards, HSJ/BMJ awards, etc.) |
|
Registered healthcare professional providing NHS services (Agenda for Change band 6 and above, or equivalent; dentists-in-training; doctors-in-training post FY2 and their Trust/SAS equivalent). |
Currently working in an NHS role or other public sector role relevant to population health and with leadership responsibility (Agenda for Change band 6 or above, or equivalent) |
||
|
Contribution to delivery of high-quality care (e.g., improving services, clinical audit, public/patient-involvement initiatives, quality improvement) Evidence of satisfactory career progression |
|||
|
Skills |
Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills Effective team player Data-analysis: able to understand and manipulate data (including familiarisation with statistics/charts and word processing packages) Able to search for and critically review literature Organisational skills, including time management and project completion |
Delivered presentations to a large audience Evidence of innovation and solution development |
|
|
Understanding
|
Sound knowledge of the English healthcare system (i.e., service provision, research, education, primary and secondary care, etc), its current challenges and future national policy direction Familiarity and interest with population health approaches and health inequalities in England |
Awareness of the top priorities for the NHS Awareness of epidemiology, health promotion and disease prevention
|
|
*The term ‘wider workforce’ is used to refer to NHS and public sector professionals that are not clinicians but work in health and care services.
Guidance
The eligibility criteria describes the type of individual that is likely to meet the challenges of the fellowship and benefit from an academic style condensed learning programme. See below for more guidance to each category.
Academic:
Due to the intensive academic nature of the learning programme, a track record of this type of learning is essential. Further qualifications and/or experiences to demonstrate academic rigor are desirable.
It is essential for individuals to have had familiarisation with scientific research and desirable for them to have contributed to research in the past because the fellowship programme involves an immersion into research studies, requiring an understanding of research processes, their limitations and challenges.
Self-directed learning is a core feature of the programme and therefore evidence of continuing professional development is necessary.
Experience:
There are two descriptors in this category, one for the clinical workforce and one for the wider workforce. This fellowship is aimed at individuals in the early stages of their careers so those likely to benefit the most from the fellowship programme are likely to have completed their primary qualification relevant to their professional practice within 15 years of their application.
Leadership experience is essential for this fellowship due to the nature of the project work. The project work involved with the fellowship will directly or indirectly relate to patient services and/or outcomes and therefore having contributed to the delivery of high-quality care, whether in a clinical or wider workforce capacity, is necessary.
Prospective clinical applicants must be providing NHS services and have appropriate UK professional registration.
Prospective wider workforce applicants must be in an NHS or public sector role relevant to population health:
- Examples from the NHS include operational managers, procurement officers, quality improvement leads and finance officers.
- Examples from outside the NHS include social workers, data analysts and policy analysts.
- Many roles relevant to population health are from health and social care, however the above examples are not exhaustive and the decision whether the role is relevant to population health rests with the Head of Public Health School for your region.
- Please note that prospective applications from outside the NHS rely on there being a mechanism to transfer funding to their employer for the salary support. If such a mechanism does not exist, then the alternative option is for the candidate’s employer to sponsor the salary support.
Skills
This section details the essential skills required to benefit from the fellowship. Fellows will be expected to produce written reports and verbal presentations and have the organisational ability to manage and prioritise multiple and sometimes competing tasks. Additionally, the project work and learning programme will require teamwork and analytical ability. Fellows will be expected to be able to search and review literature to support their learning and inform their project work.
The project work will involve presentations and it is therefore desirable for applicants to have presented to large audiences and to be able to communicate to a variety of audiences. Similarly, the ability to innovate, to think creatively, and to implement ideas is important because many projects that Fellows work on involve analysing data to suggest improvements in services.
Understanding
To learn from the project experience and link this with the learning programme, it is important for fellows to have a good understanding of the NHS and its population health ambitions.