Accreditation is time-limited and is granted to individuals who have met pre-defined College of Radiographers (CoR) requirements which are detailed in the sections below. Accreditation evidences to your peers, employer and those who use your services that you have met professional body requirements and that you practise in all four core domains of higher-level practice at advanced practitioner level.
‘Accreditation’ is not the same as registration, licencing, validation, certification or credentialling. Accreditation is applied to the whole practitioner and all their practice rather than very specific small elements, competencies or capabilities.
Accreditation is not linked to registration and, ‘Accredited Advanced Practitioner” is not a protected title and is not a statutory requirement. It may be a requirement of your employer.
Accredited advanced practitioners will be able to access the Society and College of Radiographers (SCoR) online discussion group which is for accredited individuals only. This group will give you access to resources, information and most importantly the opportunity to network with other accredited advanced practitioners throughout the United Kingdom.
Advanced practice is more than just reporting images or carrying out on-treatment patient reviews. These are examples of high-level skills that require in depth post-graduate knowledge but on their own they’re not advanced practice. For practice to be classed as ‘advanced’ the practitioner must work in all four core domains. If you don’t have elements of all four domains in your role, your practice will not be classed as advanced.
The College does not specify how much time you should spend in each domain. However, advanced practitioners usually spend at least 50 % of their time carrying out expert practice and then varying amounts of time in the other domains. All four domains must be included in your role.
The Education and Career Framework(SCoR, 2013) may help you decide if your practice is ‘advanced’.
It’s easy. All tiers of accreditation are completed in CPD Now. Just login to the Society of Radiographers’ (SoR) website and click the ‘Visit CPD Now’ button on the home page. In CPD Now click the menu item ‘Start accreditation application’.
Your accreditation application is made up of several sections. There are assessment criteria, hints and tips on each section below.
This section is a summary of you as a professional. It should include your job title, what you do, where you work, who uses your services. You may also like to include special projects you are undertaking and areas of research interest. It’s useful to include your role in education and training of students and learners.
Hints and tips:
This is a very quick and easy section. You just need to tick “advanced practitioner”. Ticking this box ensures that if accredited, the accreditation tile on your CPD Now homepage shows the correct title and expiry date.
There is a list of common areas of expertise in CPD Now. Tick the ones that apply to you. However, if you’re an expert in an area that isn’t listed there’s an ‘other’ box you can fill in. You’ll have to provide evidence to prove that you are an expert in all the areas you tick.
Your selections in this section will help the education and accreditation team at SCoR select the most appropriate person to assess your application on behalf of the College.
Hints and tips:
There are two parts to this section, a summary and then evidence of your qualifications.
Describe the qualifications you’ve gained most recently and especially those you are still working on.
Assessment criteria:
Hints and tips:
This is a straightforward section. You just need to select the relevant qualifications from those you’ve already entered into the ‘Qualification’ section of CPD Now. It’s important to ensure that there is evidence of your qualification attached. Evidence could be a scan or photograph of your qualification certificate, assessment board letter or academic transcript from your education provider.
If you haven’t entered any qualifications into CPD Now you need to do this before submitting your application.
This is a very important section. The continuing professional development (CPD) you link to the application in this section provides the evidence that you’re working within all four core domains of higher-level practice. It also provides evidence you’ve expertise in all the areas you selected earlier in the application.
You should link your best quality CPD. It should be reflective and evaluative and identify where you’ve had a significant impact on service delivery, your own practice, colleagues’ practice, users of your service, learners and your profession. This is not an exhaustive list.
Your CPD should include references to publications and presentations that have formed your practice and also to your own publications and presentation. It doesn’t matter what reference style you use.
Examples of CPD related to the four core domains
There’s overlap between the core domains so you may choose to map your own evidence to a different domain than listed below. These are not exhaustive lists. You might find it helpful to review the Education and Career Framework (SCoR, 2013) for further suggestions.
Expert practice – you must meet this core domain
Professional leadership and consultancy – you must be at least working towards this core domain
Education, training and development
Practice and service development, research and evaluation
If you’ve already got your CPD recorded in CPD Now you should be able to complete this section quickly. You just need to select the 6-8 most appropriate pieces and link them to your application by ticking the box beside them.
Hints and tips:
This is another very important section. You might find it helpful to use the four core domains as headings in this section, but this isn’t a requirement. One way to approach this section is to consider, “If I was applying for my own job, what would I write?"
This is a good place to outline projects you’re currently working on that haven’t been included as a piece of CPD. CoR assessors really like timelines to be included with project descriptions. You could include a Gantt chart, a bulleted list of milestones with estimated dates or something else entirely.
You may want to include refences to your posters, presentations and publications in this section, but if the reference list takes up too many words you can enter the list into a CPD activity and link it to your application just as you would a normal piece of CPD.
How you approach this section is up to you, but you might find it helpful to discuss it with colleagues who are accredited advanced or consultant practitioners.
Hints and tips:
All applicants for advanced and consultant practitioner accreditation need to have CPD Now accreditation before they can submit to attestors. CPD Now accreditation is gained automatically when you have recorded:
The green bars on your CPD Now framework tile are indicators of CPD Now accreditation progress.
In your application you will need to select a date from which the two years are counted back. This will normally be “today”.
CPD Now will link all the CPD you have recorded in the past 2 years to your accreditation application and it will be visible to both attestors and CoR assessors.
Assessment criterion: All the CPD you have recorded must meet the minimum standards of CPD required by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
Hints and tips:
Your application must meet the accreditation requirements detailed in each of the sections above. Attestors and CoR assessors will also consider how your application meets the high-level outcomes detailed in the Education and Career Framework (SCoR, 2013).
There are two parts to advanced practitioner accreditation assessment; approval by two attestors and by one CoR assessor. The assessment criteria used by both attestors and the assessor are the same.
Assessment criteria: Attestors and CoR assessor are asked to declare:
“I attest that this:
You choose two attestors. Attestors are registered professionals, usually diagnostic or therapeutic radiographers who are registered with the HCPC. Attestors could also be professionals who are registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, General Medical Council or another statutory regulator. It is your responsibility to ensure that your attestors are registered.
Accreditation applicants often choose people they work closely with to be their attestors. For example, an accredited consultant practitioner radiographer, senior colleague or manager. It’s important to choose an attestor who understands diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers’ CPD and accreditation requirements. If you’re thinking of choosing a non-radiographer attestor, ensure they understand what they’re declaring by passing your application. An attestation is not the same as a reference. You could send them the link to this webpage if they’re unsure what’s required.
Attestors will provide you with written feedback about your application which you can view through CPD Now. This feedback should be balanced, constructive and be clear about what you have done well and what you need to improve.
College of Radiographers’ assessors are experienced academic and clinical radiographers appointed to assess accreditation applications, education programmes and clinical placements. They have received initial training for this role and take part in regular update events. They always abide by the Society and College’s confidentiality requirements.
An assessor will review your application thoroughly and determine if it meets the College’s accreditation requirements, as in the sections above. They will take your attestors’ feedback into consideration when they do this. Assessors will either pass or defer your application.
If your application is passed by an assessor, they are making a recommendation to the Approval and Accreditation Board (AAB) to approve your accreditation. The AAB meets three times a year and is similar to assessment boards at universities.
If AAB approves your application, it makes a recommendation to the College Board of Trustees (CBoT). It is CBoT who makes the final decision to approve or defer your application. It meet four times a year.You will get official confirmation about your accreditation application following the CBoT meeting. It is only after you have received this confirmation that you are ‘accredited as an advanced practitioner’.
Advanced practitioner accreditation lasts for three years. After this time, it will expire.
Contact the Society and College of Radiographers’ Professional Officers for Education and Accreditation via: [email protected]. They will be happy to advise and guide you with regards the feedback you have received and the assessment decision.
All decisions made by the Approval and Accreditation Board, and advice given by that board to the College Board of Trustees are final.
If you are thinking about applying for advanced practitioner accreditation and still have questions, please email your questions to: [email protected]
Page last updated: 08 July 2020