Non-urgent advice: An introduction to Work Place Based Assessments (WPBA)
There are many different types of workplace based assessments, which are listed below. The list is long in order to provide the trainee with a variety of opportunities to demonstrate their abilities through the 13 Professional Capabilities. Different assessments test different things. However, many assess similar things. This helps to triangulate the evidence that you provide to ensure there is reliable evidence of each capability.
Non-urgent advice: A list of WPBA
Case Based Discussion (CbD)
Care Assessment Tool (CAT)
Mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise (MiniCEX)
Consultation Observation Tool (COT)
The Audio-COT (Audio-COT)
Clinical Examination and Procedural Skills (CEPS)
Multi-Source Feedback (MSF)
Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ)
Leadership activity and MSF
Quality Improvement Project (QIP)
Quality Improvement Activity (QIA)
Prescribing Assessment
Clinical Supervisors Report (CSR)
Educational Supervisors Review (ESR)
Click here to read more about each of these and for the minimum WPBA requirements
Non-urgent advice: How are the WPBA capabilities assessed?
Capabilities are assessed by the full range of WPBA tools, allowing you to record multiple perspectives on your performance in the ePortfolio. It is best practice for each capability to be assessed at different times using different tools and ideally with multiple assessors.
In ST3 the trainee is being assessed at the level of a General Practitioner. In ST1 and ST2 the trainee is being assessed at the level of their peers when these are done in hospital posts. During a primary care post in ST1 and ST2 the COT assessment is benchmarked against that of an independent GP.
Non-urgent advice: How does it all work together?
You collect evidence for the 13 areas of professional capability using specially designed tools (see above). The tools ensure that evidence is collected in the same way for each GP trainee, promoting consistency between different trainers.
In each six month Educational Supervision review period you should produce evidence relating to each of the capabilities. This evidence should be evenly spread through the review period and derived from a range of the WPBA tools. This will enable you to create a picture of your capability coverage. The amount of evidence needed to create this picture will depend on the depth of the evidence from each log entry or completed CbD / COT / miniCEX etc.
Non-urgent advice: What if I am part-time?
Less than full time (LTFT) trainees still need to have an ES review every 6 months, however, the minimum number of required mandatory assessments (eg. COTs and CBDs) is pro-rata to a full time trainee. Note, that LTFT trainees are expected to complete the same number of MSFs and PSQs over their training programme as full time trainees. The ES will check at the 6 monthly reviews that the WPBA collection is on track.
Non-urgent advice: I have completed my MSF and PSQ but I cannot see the results!
To be able to view your results, it is necessary for your ES to “release” the results of your MSF and PSQ to you. To do this he/she needs to have already created a blank ES report form for the relevant training review period, and clicked the Release to trainee button at the bottom of the report.
If you have not entered a minimum of 40 PSQ responses, each of them with all of the questions answered, then a PSQ report will not be generated. It is therefore recommended to normally try and get about 45 PSQs filled out to allow for incompletely completed ones.