Background

The role of feedback in medical education is well established. Good quality feedback drives learning for doctors-in-training and helps those supervising their training to develop as teachers and leaders.1

Previously, feedback on medical training in the UK has been collected annually by the General Medical Council (GMC)2 and Health Education England (HEE). The changes implemented as a result of the feedback are usually made after the cohort of doctors providing it have rotated to an alternative post and therefore they often do not benefit from these changes.

Individual trainers providing supervision to doctors-in-training do not currently receive specific feedback via this process. Negative feedback from doctors-in-training usually triggers visits to the relevant hospital/departments from the GMC or the Local Education and Training Boards (LETB).

Increasingly, both the GMC and LETBs are requesting evidence from hospital trusts on the quality of the educational and clinical supervision provided to trainees in different departments.3 Likewise, doctors providing educational supervision to doctors-in-training are increasingly required to provide evidence of their involvement and development in medical education.3 This can be difficult to achieve without significant effort.4 These issues led to the development of Healthcare Supervision Logbook Smartphone App at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, UK.

Healthcare Supervision Logbook

Healthcare Supervision Logbook (HSL) is a Smartphone App and desktop content management system (CMS) developed at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK with support from Health Education Yorkshire and Humber, UK.5 There is a version for trainees and a version for supervisors (figure 1).

HSL was originally developed in obstetrics and gynaecology, but the content of the App is fully modifiable and can be adapted for any specialty/discipline.

HSL allows doctors-in-training to provide feedback on their perceived …