• Our group currently has 102 Specialist and Associate Specialist doctors on both sites 62 at Basingstoke and 40 at Winchester. It is an active group, not just professionally but in other core curricular activities also. Across both sites we have about 70 SAS Doctors.
  • Our Tutors are Dr Gayatri Daniel and Dr Arun Selvaraju working at Basingstoke and Winchester sites respectively. They regularly meet with the Programme Director/Associate Dean for SAS doctors and other Tutors from different NHS Trusts to network and swap ideas on courses and to promote our profile.
  • Every year we organise professional development courses for SAS Doctors in our Trust; these are open to other non-trainee Doctors within our Trust and other SAS doctors from the Wessex area when spaces allow. Our courses are very well attended and the subjects are diverse but the Tutors are open to suggestions from colleagues in organising these.
  • Most of our SAS doctors are approved Trust Appraisers, Educational or Clinical Supervisors, ARCP panel members, Medical Educators, Quality Improvement Projects and Audit leads and play an active role in the Trusts’ Professional developmental activities. Our SAS doctors are represented in the Trusts’ LNC group and we are proud to say that the Associate Specialist role has been re-instated via negotiations through our LNC in 2019. Our SAS doctors have served as Associate Medical Director’s within the Trust, Program Director for SAS doctors at the Wessex Deanery and are a very active group. The tutors have successfully negotiated the extra two days leave for SAS doctors, if they have served within the Trust for more than 7 years. Some of our SAS doctors are in the Wessex Specialty Trainers Register and are called to deliver teaching in their chosen field, across the various hospitals in the deanery.
  • Every December we combine the SAS study day with a Christmas meal; the last one was on Dec 19th and was held at the ARK, Basingstoke.
  • The courses that were organised  in 2019 included:
    •  ‘New Year – New Challenges’
    •  ‘Sport Psychology’ & ‘Practising Self-Compassion’
    •  ‘Staying Legally Safe’
    •  ‘Brexit & Its Implications’
  • The courses organised for 2020 included:  
    • ‘Everything you need to know about Pensions’ (January)
    • ‘Learning from Mediators’ (March)   
    •  ‘Managing Challenging Colleagues’ (July)
    •  ‘Emotional Regulation Toolkit' (September)
    • ‘Distress Tolerance Toolkit’ (December)
  • Courses for  2021 are  being compiled at present  for June , September , December
  • A course has been scheduled to take place virtually  via Microsoft teams on Monday March 8 2021  entitled :Ethical Dilemmas        
  • SAS tutors are available for one to one meeting or to discuss over the phone any matters whether professional or personal. They have an open door policy and help anyone needing support at any given time. Dr Gayatri Daniel, Associate Specialist in Anaesthetics based at Basingstoke Hospital can be contacted via her email gayatri.daniel@hhft.nhs.uk and Dr Arun Selvaraju Associate Specialist in Oncology based at Winchester and Basingstoke hospital via  Arun.Selvaraju@hhft.nhs.uk
  • We utilise our funding very well, however it has been reduced because of the current financial situation. Extra funding could be available if SAS Doctors want to attend other courses of their choice and these should be claimed via the usual process on the hospital intranet (Trustnet) https://www.sel-expenses.com/shared/logon.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f. We encourage our SAS doctors to attend further courses to improve their professional development. So far, we have doctors in our group doing (amongst others) a Masters in Medical Education and Applied Management and a Masters in Perioperative Practice (these were part funded by the SAS budget to attain certification). We have a few doctors who were encouraged to complete specific projects for service improvement.  Support is also provided for more senior colleagues who may wish to consider the CESR route. 
  • Admin support for the SAS Tutors is provided by Eileen Smith, eileen.smith@hhft.nhs.uk with Karen McCarthy, Karen.McCarthy@hhft.nhs.uk
  • (Medical Education Lead) available for additional support to the group.
  • We are very fortunate that our new Associate Dean, Dr Fatima El-Bhakri, Consultant Microbiologist at HHFT, is very keen to encourage all SAS activities and even during the COVID period has managed to get the Tutors together via Zoom Conference Call, to discuss what more could be done. We are grateful for her input and look forward to working closely in collaboration with her.
  • Our Chief Medical Officer, Dr Lara Alloway and our Chief Executive, Alex Whitfield often support us and give valuable feedback, as needed.
  • Director of Medical Education (DME) is Dr Andrew Oswell, primarily based in Winchester but covers all sites.