Changes made by the education team are starting to become evident, writes Jocelyn Pryce, IBMS Head of Registration and Training.
As those of you who follow this column will know, the Education Team has been reviewing all of the major processes involved in the various areas we cover to ensure that we are giving you, our members, the best service we are able to provide. Some of these changes may take a while to
become evident externally, but already we are noticing the benefits internally.
Hopefully you will have noticed (or are about to) that we have managed to reduce many of our turnaround times by implementing changes in areas we have identified. A recent audit has shown that we have seen a decrease in our average turnaround times to half of those experienced in 2016. When these figures were analysed, we noticed a significant reduction in a number of turnaround times, which equates in real terms to up to 63% in some areas. Now that we have streamlined our internal processes, we are looking to sustain them and move to longer term goals.
One area where some of you may have noticed changes is the verification and examination processes. We have reviewed and revised our policy around expenses to ensure that all visits are carried out in a timely fashion and we are in the process of embedding user-friendly, interactive maps into the requests so that our verifiers and examiners can see, at a glance, where visits are required, the urgency and travel details enabling them to make informed decisions about which visits they are interested in volunteering for.
We have now entered the long, hot summer days, when many pack their suitcases and head for the relaxing holiday they have so eagerly awaited and my expectation was that work here would ease, but no – a review of last year’s statistics shows that the work peaks here during July and August.
In many areas, work coming through the department increases significantly in line with the academic year, which is a reason why turnaround times are expected to increase. Another factor is holidays – with many of our verifiers and examiners taking leave at this timeof year, our pool of active verifiers and examiners ebbs slightly.
No sooner are we over the summer “hump” than we prepare for Congress, where a rise in CPD activity is expected.
Over the coming months, we will look for trends and then study the areas closely to see where further improvements can be implemented.
In the meantime, please be patient and know that we are working towards a better service for you.
Number of certificates issued and average portfolio turnaround
