Training Academy

Central Middlesex hospital, part of LNWH, hosts our Ultrasound academy.

Our well established US academy now welcomes trainees from across NW London.

It features dedicated academy ultrasound rooms, where a trainee can be closely supported, away from the potential interruptions of our acute sites.

We are very fortunate to have a highly experienced team of Ultrasound practice educators.

Here they are- Kamal Bambhania, Sujata Patel and Haroon Qarib, hosting a regional study event- so popular they had to put on extra dates!

They deliver a broad spectrum of education and training to both sonographers, specialty registrars and more recently to medical physicists. 

The US academy has recently benefitted from an upgrade to its state of the art simulation technology, offering our trainees the opportunity to develop their skills in a risk-free environment
Ultrasound academy installs "ultra-realistic" simulator | SoR

Here is Lucy Edwards, a current Sonographer trainee and Haroon making use of the technology:

Alongside dedicated training lists for those learning to become a sonographer, this facility is also supporting the upskilling of our existing workforce to deliver musculoskeletal ultrasound, with plans to extend this offering into other specialities, benefitting our patients across NW London.

We are very proud of our Ultrasound academy, seen as the gold standard in our region and nationally recognised for its offering.

NWL has a significant MRI footprint with 24 scanners delivering a service to our patients across our trusts.
Our ICS has a skilled team of three MRI practice educators who are heading up our MRI academy.
Andrew Worsley and Olga Costa from ICHNT and Christian Bontia from LNWH.

We recognise the need to support our workforce in this modality. We are utilising our community diagnostic centre (CDC) currently based on the Ealing hospital site, run by ICHNT, to provide dedicated training lists to our staff across the sector. A true example of working together in partnership!

Trainees from across the ICS have benefitted from this pioneering approach, they are supported with core content and one to one supervision from the practice educator team. The feedback from our trainees has been outstanding.

As with our US colleagues we are scanning patients in state of the art facilities, contributing to the capacity of our services whilst also developing the workforce of the future. We believe this approach is currently unique within the NHS in England.

This scheme is coinciding with pilots of new technology to help support learning and development, whilst optimising the training period for our staff. We are excited to continue our work looking at simulation technology and ICHNT is currently part of a national pilot (1 of only 9 sites) looking at virtual support technology, allowing a highly skilled member of staff to remotely view a scanner and if required take control Radiology Operations Command Center İ Philips Healthcare

St Marks Hospital at Central Middlesex  (LNWH NHS Trust) will be the first Centre of Excellence site to open in London for the National CT Colonography Training and Accreditation Programme (NCTCTAP).

The National CTC programme which was piloted across London and the Midlands, aims to significantly enhance skills, accrediting Radiographers and Radiologists in CTC technique and interpretation, and excitingly now a recently approved path to a Postgraduate Certificate with the University of Suffolk.  It will roll out Module A (technique for Radiographers) through 7 Regional Centres of Excellence across England, and later rolled out to the rest of the UK.  The aim will be to provide all Radiographers with access to the digital training campus of Module A, and it is expected that many Radiographers and Radiologists will develop onto Module B (interpretation and reporting), which is currently going through its initial testing phases and will be available for roll out later this year. More about this programme can be found at: https://www.nationalctctrainingprogramme.org/

As of April 2023, NW London has some of the highest number of Imaging practice educators in any of the London ICSs.

Alongside those who are already delivering our US and MRI academy we will be supporting further development of the role in CT (from Q1 2023) and have established colleagues who are responsible for the support of students, apprentices (we are pioneering the development of MRI assistant practitioners in London) and the wider postgraduate teams.

One of our practice educators is currently seconded as the co-clinical director of the regional Imaging academy.

Over the last few years our ICS has invested significantly in our reporting radiographer teams.
We are fortunate to have two Consultant radiographers, amongst a team of over 25 reporting radiographers within NW London.

These teams play a key role in supporting our staff locally, the quality of our services, as well as contributing regionally and nationally to educational events and with our local HEIs in delivering programmes for the reporting teams of the future.

We are focussed on bringing our reporting radiographers closer together and taking advantage of close digital infrastructure to the benefit of our services and patients.

With support from the regional academy we now have a dedicated academy room based at ICHNT. This room houses state of the art technology allowing us to support a variety of different events or a quiet place for staff to concentrate.

Our ICS can offer you a rich variety of opportunities in a supportive environment and with continued collaboration between our partners we will continue to push the boundaries of what and how training can be delivered to the benefit of our staff and our services in NW London.

• Secured c.£500k for Imaging Academy in 2021​
• Practice Educator roles​

• 1 of 10 national pilots in virtual cockpit technology for cardiac MRI and CT radiographic training​
• CTC training programme​
• Practice educators working across the trusts
• Ultrasound training for sonographers and registrars at the Ultrasound academy (at ICHT)

• Practice educators in workforce plans
• Academy room to be used for CTC training
• NWL training courses

1. Establish a permanent home for our pioneering MRI training programme

2. Substantiate our practice educator roles in CT, MR and Ultrasound

3. Share best practice and resources across the ICS in supporting our workforce of the future

4. Develop a dedicated CT modality training offering for our ICS

5.  Develop an academy supported CPD offering for Imaging staff across our ICS, in partnership with the region

6. Support the development of diagnostic radiographer apprenticeship roles across our ICS

7. Develop an academy supported offering to engage with local schools and colleges to support our workforce of the future