In General Practice, you will need to engage in both UUC and OOH work in order to fulfil requirements for the MRCGP. This involves gaining experience of being the on-call or duty doctor for your surgery (in hours) or shifts with the OOH provider, which is provided by GoToDoc for the Tameside area.

Any OOH work that you do with GoToDoc will come off your maximum 40 hour working week at the GP Practice so it is important that you let your practice know when you are planning on doing OOH shifts so that they can tweak your rota to ensure you are not doing any extra hours. Telling them in advance helps them to do this without disrupting the service provision to patients at the practice and is a professional courtesy.

There are lots of important money-related issues to consider whilst in GP training such as salary, study budget, exam fees, and tax. Whilst we are not accountants, information about common questions can be found on our Money Matters page here.

Indemnity

Whilst you are a GP trainee, you are covered by indemnity provided by HEE in both hospital, GP and Out-of-hours settings. You are also covered for any disputes between yourself, the practice, your employer and the GMC. Any private work completed under the supervision of clinical or educational supervisors, such as cremation forms, insurance medical forms or letters is also covered.

However, you are not usually covered for any private work outside of training such as sports medicine or aesthetic medicine and you will need to arrange your own cover for activities such as these.

You will receive an email from the Medical Defence Organisation (such as the MDU or MPS) that will cover you for training prior to starting training and each year of training afterwards. It is important to read the documents they send so you understand the extent of the cover provided to you.

Contracts

Induction App: Trainees and other health professionals can sign up to the Induction app, certified with the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit, which can quickly provide you with a list of extension and bleep numbers for Tameside General Hospital, invaluable whilst in hospital placements.

Download for Android
Download for Apple

Bradford VTS: is an independent GP Training website with a treasure trove of information for GP Trainees and Trainers alike. You will find information on all aspects of GP training including curriculum guides, communication skills, ARCP, portfolio, exams and clinical knowledge guidelines and resources.

Access it here.

LTFT training has been established in the Tameside and Glossop training programme for many years and Doctors may choose to train LTFT for a variety of reasons such as family commitments or professional development opportunities.

As well as the benefits of LTFT working there are also potential challenges to consider, for example, reduced income from working reduced hours and longer time spent in training. There may also be some rotations and specialties that cannot accommodate LTFT trainees due to service demands.

The training team will try their hardest to accommodate LTFT training where possible but unfortunately not all trainees desiring to work LTFT can. The guidance surrounding the eligibility and application process for training LTFT can be found on the HEENW website here.

There are a variety of diverse GP practices in the Tameside and Glossop region. A full list of training practices and trainers can be found here.

Further information about being a GP, as well as how to apply to GP Training, can be found on the GP National Recruitment Office (GPNRO) website.

Every scheme has a Training Programme Director (TPD) with lead responsibility for GP Trainers and Trainees who can help guide you through the process. Please contact the TPD if you have not already done so. For Tameside and Glossop, this is Dr Rachel Edwards.

Locally, the HEENW School of General Practice provides useful information for Intending and Current GP Trainers which can be found here. Furthermore, Bradford VTS also has an extensive range of information devoted to New and Intending GP Trainers.

Locally, there is a friendly WhatsApp group for GP trainers in Tameside to network and ask questions relating to being a trainer.

Bradford VTS also has a myriad of helpful resources for both Clinical and Education supervisors to consider including supervisor reviews, the portfolio, ARCP process and ideas for getting the most out of tutorials.