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3.7.2.1 FE colleges

The competence-based qualification was undertaken in the workplace where trainees would collect evidence of work completed to demonstrate competence. The management of the competence qualification was often done ‘in-house’ in the trainee’s workplace as this is where evidence could be demonstrated and recorded in the portfolio. Therefore staff involved in assessing the competence qualification could vary. If trainees worked in settings where there were assessors available there would be less staff required at the FE college to assess trainees. One of the FE colleges with a higher number of trainees compared to other FE colleges – and more trainees in community than hospital – described the staff involved in the management of the competence qualification.

“I’ve got two full time members of staff who classroom teach and assess the NVQ part and … one part time assessor and then I’ve got a handful of assessors that I just call locum assessors, associate assessors.”

FE college 6

As FE college 6 had more community trainees than other FE colleges they had more staff involved in overseeing the competence qualification as many community pharmacies did not have qualified assessors in the workplace. As noted previously, many trainees undertook their work experience within the hospital setting and many hospitals had assessors in the workplace who fed into the delivery and assessment of the competence qualification. These assessors in the workplace would not be FE college staff, but hospital staff, though they would work with the FE college in the delivery and assessment of the competence qualification.

“The assessors are all pharmacy technicians or pharmacists, but they’re not employed by the college; they would be employed in the workplace beside where the student works.

FE college 13

In order to assess trainees’ competence, assessors would have to hold an assessor qualification, often completed through an FE college. This would be a level 3 qualification awarded by the same awarding bodies that offered the knowledge and competence qualification for pharmacy technicians (Pearson Edexcel; City and Guilds; SQA). One such example is the current Training Assessment and Quality Assurance (TAQA) qualification for assessors that is awarded by City and Guilds. which was, however, not specific to

39 pharmacy, so it could be a qualification held by assessors in a range of disciplines outside of pharmacy.

“It’s a generic qualification, it’s not pharmacy specific, so you can actually go anywhere for that qualification.”

FE college 3

Often, the assessor qualification would be completed at an FE college, such as one that worked closely with the hospital to provide the knowledge and/or competence qualification to trainees. This would give the hospital site some independence in managing and overseeing the progress of their trainees throughout completing the competence qualification.

“We provide the assessor award and the verifiers’ award … staff have come and done them qualifications with us and they actually, within the NHS Trusts, look after their own students.”

FE college 9

Many hospitals had the infrastructure to provide assessors and also internal verification of assessments for the competence qualification and the FE college would provide the portfolio materials that were used by the hospital. In some cases, smaller hospitals may not have had the infrastructure, with assessors in place, to assess a trainee’s competence. In such cases peripatetic assessment could take place where assessors employed by the FE college would visit the hospital to observe and assess trainees.

We’ve got two hospitals, very small hospitals, where they haven’t got any assessors in the workplace … we have got an assessor who works one day a week for the college, she tends to work mainly on the level two, to be honest, but she does actually look after a couple of our students, so she actually goes in as a peripatetic assessor to the workplace, so there is that model and also, you know, we have to obviously provide assessment for the community pharmacy technicians, because they don’t have assessors in the workplace.

FE college 3

Peripatetic assessment was, however, more commonly used to observe trainees that were undertaking their work experience in community pharmacy.

“For community pharmacy generally we provide the assessors because they don’t have their own qualified assessors. We provide qualified assessors from

[our] college and they go out into their workplace and provide that assessment for them and support them through the NVQ.”

FE college 9

As with the internal quality assurance of the knowledge qualification, the assessments that were completed by assessors for the competence qualification were subject to the same checks by an internal verifier/quality assurer who would hold an appropriate (level 4) qualification.

“We have an internal verifier who will again just sample at random to make sure that the quality of the assessments is robust.”

FE college 16

Internal verification of assessments would be completed by the FE college if internal verifiers were not present in the workplace (e.g. in community pharmacies or some hospitals).

Several interviewees from FE colleges spoke about how some hospitals may not have had qualified internal verifiers available to check assessment decisions and therefore the FE college would provide internal verification to ensure the assessments being conducted by workplace-based assessors were of a similar standard.

“[Trainees] have work based assessors, so they’re people that they work

alongside in the NHS Trusts, most of them, some of them, not all of them do, but most of them have work based assessors and we manage it from the college, so the quality of the assessment is managed from the college.”

FE college 3

3.7.2.2 Distance providers

The distance providers employed assessors that were involved in both knowledge and competence assessment of trainees, and therefore the staff involved in overseeing the progress of trainees’ competence qualification were the same as those discussed in the previous section about the knowledge qualification. The process of assessment of

competence followed by internal verification was consistent with the knowledge qualification. The actual assessment of trainees was, however, commonly done from a distance (see section 3.8.2), with the assessor not working alongside the trainee nor visiting the trainee’s workplace to undertake observations regularly, as appeared to be the case for trainees using FE colleges. Instead, expert witnesses’ observations and testimonials of trainees’

41 the distance provider. They were typically a line manager of the trainee (e.g. supervising pharmacist in community) or another pharmacist or pharmacy technician who had witnessed the trainee undertaking a task that mapped onto competencies laid out in the portfolio.

“So it'll be usually their supervising pharmacist. If they are working with a registered technician then we will also accept witness testimony from them. And they also act in a supervisor and an expert witness role as well.”

Distance provider 2

In some cases it appeared that assessors would visit a trainee’s workplace but this was not common practice, as illustrated in the quote below:

For some students who are in the area where the assessors are based, assessors will go out and observe candidates. But I think a lot of our students are actually at a distance, so it is mainly through expert witness testimony and professional discussions.

Distance provider 1

Support for expert witnesses in community pharmacy often came in the form of reading through some training material which outlined the roles and responsibilities of an expert witness.

“It's a short course. We also have…it's called an information module … that would support the pharmacist or technician in the pharmacy as well to support their students.”

Distance provider 3

“The expert witness will do an induction through our centre on what's actually involved in being an expert witness. We do an induction with them, so they are clear on what their role is and how the student is gathering evidence.”

Distance provider 1