General Practice placements are usually undertaken during your ST2 and ST3 training years. Your working week (based on a full time trainee) consists of 40 hours with a 7:3 ratio of clinical to educational time.
Self-directed learning can include work on your Work Place Based Assessment, sitting in on clinics, joint surgeries, attendance on courses or completion of e-learning. Trainees can access a study budget but only for specific GP related courses and applications must be made prior to the course using the correct form which can be found here.
Duties and activities suited to clinical sessions
- Supervised or supported consultations within the practice. Including time at the end of any consulting period to allow a trainee to debrief with the supervising GP.
- Supervised or supported home visits, nursing home visits, community hospital duties including time for debriefing, and travelling.
- Administrative work that directly and indirectly supports clinical care, which includes: reviewing investigations and results, writing referral letters, acting upon clinical letters, preparing reports, general administration.
Clinical activities that may be considered educational
- Induction into post
- Time spent in activities relating to work-placed based assessment.
- Time spent analysing video recordings of consultations, for educational development purposes outside of WPBA
- Time spent in specialist clinics; especially where these are arranged to gain exposure to patient groups and illnesses not covered elsewhere in a trainee’s programme, e.g. family planning clinics, joint injection clinics.
- Participation in clinics run by other GPs – such as minor surgery lists, especially where direct supervision is required in the process to get formal verification of procedural competences.
Non-clinical activities suited to educational sessions
- VTS teaching
- Structured and planned educational activities, such as tutorials delivered in the GP practice.
- Primary care team meetings.
- Educational supervisor meetings and other educational reviews.
- Audit and research in general practice.
- Independent study or revision.
Educational Supervision – Protected time for Trainers
It is important that Educational supervisors have a full 4 hours protected time (minimum) for training in the working week. This is needed to cover:
- The Supervised Learning Events
- Tutorials
- Meetings with the trainee to review progress
- Time spent advising on research and audit
- Advising on action plans for further learning
- Time spent relating to the eportfolio as well as writing Clinical Supervisor Reports
- Preparation time for the above
- Meetings with the wider educational team to support learners