Role foundations: role practice guide

Role foundations runs from hour 88 to hour 268 for every track. It closes the role and skill gaps that are not about automation, because each person is measured against their whole role.

Content: set by the individual learning plan from the Gate 0 gaps in Parts A, B, and C.
Time: 1 hour in every 7.5 hours of learning for role practice with the mentor or line manager, plus stretch tasks in normal work.
Evidence: progress on each individual learning plan action, reviewed at every gate, and the agreed ratings in the instrument.

Turning individual learning plan gaps into practice in every 7.5 hours of learning

Pick the gap. Take one of the top 3 individual learning plan gaps for this gate period. Clinical risk management and information governance come first if they are gaps, because they must meet expectations by Gate 2.
Read the target. Read the expectation for the item: the band outline text (Part A items 1 to 5), the factor level summary (Part A items 6 to 21), the UK GDaD PCF statement (Part B), or the "You can …" statements at the expected level (Part C).
Name one behaviour. Write one thing the person will do regularly that would show the item. Keep it small and observable, such as "I write the risk summary in every sprint test report".
Choose a practice activity from the tables below, or agree one.
Do it for real. Use the person's own team and product. Where possible, combine it with the real automation work in the same hours.
Reflect in the slot. In the hour: what happened, what went well, what to change. Record it in the learning log.
Collect evidence. When the behaviour is regular, write a short, specific example against the item id.
Move on. Once an item is Meets at a gate, pick the next gap.

Rule of thumb: one gap at a time for Band 3 and Band 4, up to two at a time for Band 5 to Band 7.

Practice activities for each UK GDaD PCF skill

Choose activities at the person's expected level. Lower-band tracks start at the top of each list.

Test analysis

Read a user story before refinement and write three questions about risk, data, or acceptance criteria.
Map one clinical workflow end to end and mark where it could go wrong.
List the functional and non-functional quality characteristics that matter for a feature, and agree them with the product owner.
Run a short risk-storming session with the team for a new feature (Band 6, Band 7).
Coach a colleague through analysing a story (Practitioner and above).

Test and quality planning

Explain the team's test approach in your own words, and how the delivery method shapes it.
Write the test approach for one feature, based on risk, and get it reviewed.
Track one measure of test effectiveness for a sprint, such as escaped defects, and discuss it at a retrospective.
Contribute to, then lead, a test strategy for an area (Band 6, Band 7).
Propose and run a data-driven improvement to the test approach (Expert, Band 7 test management).

Designing and executing tests

Run an exploratory testing session with a charter and write session notes.
Choose test techniques (boundary values, equivalence partitions, decision tables, state transitions) for a feature and explain why.
Set up a test environment or data set with support, then on your own.
Lead a test design review for the team (Practitioner).

Test engineering

Covered by the core modules. In Role foundations, use the slot to explain one recent piece of automation to a non-technical colleague, which also practises communication.

Managing, reporting and resolving defects

Raise defects with steps, data, screens, expected and actual results, and clinical impact.
Retest a fixed defect and close it with evidence.
Explain the impact of a defect to a stakeholder in plain language.
Analyse a month of defects for patterns, and recommend one change (Practitioner and above).
Run defect triage for a release (Band 7 test management).

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Write the test summary for a sprint review in plain language, with one risk and one recommendation.
Present a short demo of an automated test to a non-technical audience.
Host a discussion between a developer and a clinical user about an acceptance criterion.
Handle a difficult conversation about a release risk with a senior stakeholder, with the mentor observing (Practitioner and above).

Business and user acceptance testing (Band 6 quality assurance)

Write business scenarios for acceptance criteria and review them with the product owner.
Plan a user acceptance testing session with clinicians, including their time and data.
Report business readiness and residual risks for a release.

Practice activities for each health care skill

Understanding health and care services: shadow a clinical or care user (Health care foundations); explain the workflow your product supports to a colleague; use clinical terms correctly in defect reports.
Clinical risk management: contribute to a hazard workshop; link three tests to hazards in the hazard log; explain to the clinical safety officer what your test evidence shows.
Information governance and data protection: check one test data set is fully synthetic; describe what to do if you find real patient data in a test environment; contribute to a data protection impact assessment (Working).
Health data interoperability: read a FHIR resource and explain each field; check a message against its specification.
Medical device software regulation (Band 7): find out whether your product is regulated as a medical device, and what records its life cycle needs.
People management (Band 7 test management): hold regular one-to-ones; set development objectives with each team member; plan the team's development (Leading teams through automation adoption).

Practice activities for band dimensions

Band outline (Part A items 1 to 5)

Dimension	Example practice
Part A item 1: Knowledge	Agree one area of the product or procedure to learn in depth this gate period, and teach it back to the mentor.
Part A item 2: Autonomy	Agree a decision the person will now make alone, which they used to refer upward, and review how it went.
Part A item 3: Scope	Take on one task for the wider team (Band 3), a defined process (Band 4), a whole product area (Band 6), or a cross-product task (Band 7).
Part A item 4: Leadership	Show a new starter a procedure (Band 3), coordinate a small piece of shared work (Band 4), guide an apprentice (Band 5), mentor a colleague (Band 6), or lead a practice area such as test automation (Band 7).
Part A item 5: Accountability	Own the accuracy of a record, the delivery of a process, or the outcome of a workstream, as the band requires, and report on it.

Job evaluation factors (Part A items 6 to 21)

The most common gaps for testers, with practice ideas:

Factor	Example practice
Part A item 6: Communication and relationship skills	Give complex or sensitive test results to stakeholders; train a small group on a procedure; negotiate a test scope.
Part A item 7: Knowledge, training, and experience	Follow the individual learning plan's learning actions; the core modules close much of this gap.
Part A item 8: Analytical and judgemental skills	Decide between options where facts conflict, such as whether a defect blocks release, and write down your reasoning.
Part A item 9: Planning and organisational skills	Plan your own work for the sprint and review it at the end (Bands 3 to 5); plan test activities for a release with dependencies (Band 6); plan across teams or a programme (Band 7).
Part A item 12: Responsibility for policy and service development	Propose an improvement to a team test procedure, then implement it (Bands 3 to 6); contribute to a policy or standard (Band 7).
Part A item 14: Responsibility for people	Supervise or coach a colleague's work (Band 6 QA); manage or allocate work for others (Band 7).
Part A item 15: Responsibility for information resources	Maintain a test data set, a test suite, or a set of records, and keep it accurate and current.
Part A item 17: Freedom to act	Agree with the manager which decisions are now the person's to make, within guidelines (Band 4), broad objectives (Band 5), policy for their area (Band 6), or organisational policy (Band 7); review each decision in the slot.
Part A item 19: Mental effort	Plan time for periods of concentrated work, such as test analysis or debugging, and protect it.

Factors Part A item 10, Part A item 11, Part A item 13, Part A item 16, Part A item 18, Part A item 20, and Part A item 21 rarely show gaps for testers. If they do, discuss them with the line manager, because they may point to a job design question or a reasonable adjustment rather than a learning need.

Using Part B items

Part B items are UK GDaD PCF role statements and reference responsibilities, such as "analyse artefacts and prototypes" or "trace tests to hazards and safety controls". Treat each one the same way as a skill: name one regular behaviour, practise it in real work, and collect evidence. Many Part B items are met through the core modules; use Role foundations for the ones that are not.

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