The next meeting is provisionally scheduled for Wednesday 4th of March 2009

This was a well attended and lively first meeting of the AiT committee. Many points were raised and discussed. A selection is summarized below:

• Confirmation of the College’s position in relation to other organisations such as the British Medical Association and the opportunities for working closely together.
• Selection of Deanery Deputies
• Frequency of AiT meetings
• Committee considered that the AiT packages were financially prudent for most trainees and that the College’s subscription years ran in line with financial or tax years.
• Comments from the Committee on the Tooke Report and the College’s response to it.
• PMETB took statutory responsibility for post-graduate medical education and certification required changes for all specialties. All 56 specialties were required to submit curricula for PMETB approval and the RCGP curriculum is the first UK curriculum for general practice.
• WPBA - The ePortfolio for the Workplace-based Assessment was considered to be a positive development in recognizing training although some issues and suggestions in relation to the ePortfolio were noted.
• ARCP  - Deaneries will hold an Annual Review of Trainee Competence Progression (ARCP) which measures the progress of a trainee.
• AKT - The Committee learnt that the first sitting of the Applied Knowledge Test ran smoothly with approximately 1300 candidates undertaking the computer-based test. Of this group, the College is aware of around 7 cases where problems occurred but these are being dealt with accordingly.
• CSA - treasurer outlined the costs and development of the exam to the Committee who felt reassured of the reasoning behind the fees levied for the exam.
• Preparation Courses - Committee raised the issue that nMRCGP preparation courses were not available as quickly as trainees would have liked and that there were significant geographical variations with some faculties delivering them sooner than others.

More detailed discussion of the various points will occur on the blog site over the forthcoming weeks.

If the reader feels insufficient discussion has occurred on the topic, please feel free to revisit the topic, and hopefully carry it forward.

Just to emphasize the opinions expressed on this blog are personal. I do not speak for the RCGP. However I will attempt to answer your queries to the best of my abilities and if there are any grey areas I would be more than happy to bring the issue to the attention of the AiT committee (who have close links with the RCGPs). Hopefully your query would then get answered as accurately as possible.