ES confusion - for trainers and trainees

We have just done mock ARCP panels with our hospital based trainees. Quite a few are struggling because their educational supervisor has not created a review or signed off their declarations.

WAKE UP TRAINERS - you need to create an ES review date and sign off their declarations for all your supervisees at the start of each 6 month, so if you have not done it yet DO IT NOW!

AND FOR TRAINEES - when you come to have your ES meeting you need to have completed all the self rating scales. In the past it did not matter but now your ES will not be able to complete the review until this is done.

I don't know why I am shouting this as I have just done an ES review and it took me and my supervisee ages to sort out all the stuff to allow us to complete it.

Actually I do know why I am shouting about it - everything with the ePortfolio seems to change every six months (I should not really be surprised with this because it has always been so) and it is so FRUSTRATING!!!

Tick, tock, tick, tock .... boom!

I was an assessor at the ST3 mock CSA we had a Normanton on Tuesday. The case I was assessing was easy and staightforwards. It was a 35 year old taking microgynon who had had it stopped by the practice nurse because she was a smoker. She came to discuss alternatives.

However, of the eight doctors we assessed only three reached the end of the consultation and one of the doctors who gave her a prescription gave her the wrong advice about how to take it.

The main issue was TIME. Most doctors were very thorough but they simply spent too long on the consultation and never concluded it. They would have failed because they did not reach the management stage of the consultation.

The take home message I have is that you only have 10 minutes, you need to be consulting at 10 minutes and you need to have some impetus to get to the end! To pass CSA you need to be patient centred, with evidence based options and do it in 10 minutes - easy !!!!

Video security

At the Primary Care Educators seminar last week, one of the Training Programme Directors reported an incident where a video camera and tape of consultations was stolen from a practice. This was reported to the practices local Primary Care Trust and a full Significant Untoward Incident Report was completed. This was a major loss of significant material of a confidential nature and exposed the practice, trainer and trainee to allegations of non compliance with Data Protection regulations and possible reporting to the GMC for loss of significant data.

This is really, really serious ...

So, it got me thinking. What should we be doing to protect against this sort of thing. At the Pontefract Trainers Workshop this week we discussed this incident and came up with a list of suggestions:

• Keep your consulting room door locked when you leave the room if the video is set up
• Lock the camera and tapes securely away when not in use
• Wipe all tapes at the end of each attachment
• Trainers should add a bit to trainees contracts and induction pack about keeping camera and tapes secure

Helpfull our take home message was that we should inform trainees that if anything is stolen it is YOUR FAULT....

Management savings getting close to home ...

I was away at the West Yorkshire Locality Primary Care Educators seminar at Harrogate yesterday. This is a meeting of local training programme directors. In the past these events have lasted two days with an overnight stay, but they are now reduced to just one day - alas the 'proper English breakfast' has gone, but that is probably good for my waistline anyway!

At our meeting yesterday a constant theme through all of our discussions was how tight money is for training, there is none for expansion and management costs are expected to be drastically reduced. So, as well as me missing my proper cooked breakfast one of the things current trainees will notice is some tightening up on the rules for travel and accommodation claims. It was agreed yesterday that the Deanery will no longer reimburse travel and accommodation for attendance at exams - so from now on you will have to pay your own way to get to Croydon for the CSA!