The new ‘Gold Guide 8’ which gives the rules for ARCPs was issued at the end of March and almost immediately the Statutory Education Bodies (SEBs) of the four Nations issued a derogation to deal with COVID-19 including an ‘Outcome 10’ where training has been disrupted. We have been involved in significant work between the SEBs, the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) to produce new guidance as well as specialty specific guidance.

Link to FPH ARCP Decision Aid Guidance 

Link to Gold Guide

The Faculty has had to cancel the following exam sittings this year

Diplomate Exam: June

Final Membership Exam: April & June

We still have sittings scheduled for the remainder of the year. Details can be found on the exams respective pages on the FPH website here.

The Faculty has currently been in consultation with key stakeholders, including the Specialty Registrar Committee, in regards to the rescheduling these exams in 2020 a safe and sceure manner.

The exams are vital milestones in training and we recognise that any delay in these will have significant impact on the progression of Registrars through the training scheme.

There were 929 applicants in November 2019 and we have successfully recruited 77 trainees to start in August 2020. While the first two stages (Eligibility Checking and Assessment Centre) ran as normal, the Selection Centre was held in February so there was a significant loss of assessors to COVID-19 work.

However, adjustments were made to some stations and additional assessors brought in, so we were able to complete all sections fully. A priority for the Faculty is to ensure that suitable contingency plans are in place so that recruitment is delivered in 2021.

There have been no changes to process (re-iterated in the ARCP guidance). CCT continues as normal, although the Faculty recognises that some documentation maybe difficult to provide given social distancing measures and are working with individuals on a case by case basis.

The curriculum review consultation process was completed in January, however next stage of the work has not gone forward due to other priorities for the Curriculum Review Working Group members.

The Faculty has revised the timeline for the completion of this work and which has been published on the Curriculum Review 2020 page here.

The PHE Specialty Training Group has developed several new initiatives to support specialty training registrars involved in the national COVID response in PHE. This is being done through a COVID-focussed working group. The attached documents explain:

1. Training Principles Document.
This highlights the key elements which need to be considered, including a short summary on good practice for remote supervision and training. This document also contains Project Proposal and Expression of Interest Forms which can be used by cell leads or supervisors to request registrar input from now on. We have automated the Project Proposal form on SelectSurvey so that we can coordinate a request out to registrars via the national TPDs.The Training Principles document can be downloaded here.

2. List of current opportunities
The themes of current project proposals include health protection, surveillance, research proposals, rapid reviews, epidemiology, and cross-government working.
For an up-to-date list of current opportunities within PHE, please contact Hannah.Burn@phe.gov.uk

3. Agile working policy download

4. Terms of reference of Specialty training group download