Study Leave

Background

Study leave is an integral component of postgraduate medical training to assist in the achievement of the knowledge, skills and behaviours defined in curricular. This is funded via a levy on Education Support money and administered by HEE local offices to be refunded via trainee’s employers. HEE has a formal study leave policy and oversight from a national working group. The working group has responsibility for ensuring fairness of distribution and responding to any issues raised. It is currently looking at how ED&I impacts on study leave. This is alongside parallel work by HEE around differential attainment. That includes recent additional funding to support GP expansion weighted by non-UK PMQs to minimise differential attainment. GP training has more invested within its training programmes so individual study leave outside programmes is less and currently managed separately.

Approach in West Midlands

Analysis of spend by protected characteristics

Study leave is recorded differently by different offices. HEE is transitioning from Intrepid to Trainee Information System (TIS) for recording trainee details but only some offices have access to Leave Manager to record study leave spend against characteristics. An analysis has been undertaken of East Midlands data which has Leave Manager and a high proportion of non-UK primary medical qualification (PMQ) trainees. It thus has well-developed strategies for IMGs which may be less well developed elsewhere. Data from 3 years (2018/19, 2019/20 & 2020/21) has been interrogated which covers study leave claims from 9,444 trainee years. This is still incomplete plus 11% of trainees do not have their origin of PMQ identified. It covers a total budget of over £4.6 million.

The conclusion from this initial study, which has some statistical uncertainty, is that IMG trainees receive at least as much study leave funding as UK graduates. This is also in the climate of significant disruption by COVID-19 in the third year.

Thus with improved recording, robust data against characteristic could be obtained for more detailed analysis. A request has been made to the TIS team to roll out Leave Manager or an equivalent to all offices to assist with this. There may be issues with some employers who have bespoke programmes that could limit this option. This is currently in a ‘discovery phase’ and could be funding dependent but is supported by the Study Leave Working Group

Analysis of GMC Study Leave Data

The biggest consistent variable affecting trainee perceived support for Study leave is Seniority (Training Grade). Gender has no impact.

There is an effect of Deanery and Specialty that is difficult to interpret but may be as significant as PMQ/ethnicity effect.

PMQ/Ethnicity does have some effect in some situations that is not consistent. There are examples of IMG BME perceiving poorer support and UK White better support. Care is needed interpreting this as not consistent. This will promote ongoing discussion and review where it is identified.