WPBA

There are a number of workplace based assessments. These are listed below. The list is large in order to provide you many opportunities for demonstrating your ability in the 13 Professional Capabilities. Different assessments test different things. However, many assess similar things. This helps to triangulate the evidence you provide to ensure there is reliable evidence of your capability.

From August 2020 WPBA have been updated. New acronyms have been introduced and there are a number of new requirements.

A detailed description of each WPBA and the numbers required for each stage of training can be found on the RCGP website – links in next section.

– COT +CAT (in primary care only)
– CBD
– Mini-CEX (in secondary care only)
– CEPS
– MSF
– PSQ (in primary care only)
– Learning Logs
– Significant Events
– Prescribing Review
– Leadership Activity
– QIP (Quality Improvement Project)
– CSR
– ESR

Click here to read more about each of these

Minimum WPBA numbers – click here (scroll to bottom of page)

Like we said earlier, 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.

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 and supervisors in secondary care.

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.

Think of making a digital picture where you need to have enough pixels to create a clear image. In the same way, the amount of ‘pixels’ that a log entry or WPBA tool gives will vary depending on the detail included in the tool.

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 WPBA collection is on track.

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.