Thematic quality assurance

We also use our quality assurance visits to consider themes, which are either idenified through our evidence base or are UK-wide issues. We tailor our approach to this sort of quality assurance to suit the theme we have identified.

We will investigate assessment and small specialties in 2012/13

The themes for investigation in 2012/13 will be:

• quality assurance of small specialties
• assessment across all stages of medical education and training

Small specialty reviews

How we define a small specialty

A small specialty:

• has a headcount of less than 250 trainees across the UK
• does not have national trainee survey results published for more than 10% of its training porgrammes because the response rates were too small.

We will review four small specialties in 2012/13

The small specialties we are reviewing in 2012/13 are:

• occupational medicine
• oral maxillogacial surgery
• paediatric cardiology
• psychotherapy

Read more about the small specialty review teams.

Thematic review of assessment

We have identified assessment as a challenge across the continium of medical education and training from our evidence base. This includes:

• medical schools' self assessment against compliance against the standards in Tomorrow's Doctors
• continuing poor results for students perception of feedback on their performance in the National Student Survey
• variability in ARCP outcomes
• and performance in specialty exams within and between postgraduate deaneries and specialties

We have appointed a team of GMC associates including assessment experts to consider how these challenges are being met across the UK and to identify areas for improvement.

We have already asked medical schools and postgraduate deaneries key questions about assessment during scheduled visits. We will undertake further activities with medical schools, postgraduate deaneries, the Medical Schools Council assessment alliance, medical royal colleges and the Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans to:

• Create a clear picture of which assessments are undertaken at each stage of medical students' programmes and the extent of difference in medical schools' assessment systems and tools.
• Understand why compliance with assessment standards of Tomorrow's Doctors is more challenging for some schools than others and identify what regulatory action is required.
• Understand why students continually assess feedback on their performance to be poor and identify good practice that could be shared.
• Explore influences on specialty exam pass rates within a deanery that has different pass rates to the norm and a deanery that has pass rates in line with the norm.
• Understand how and why trainees might pass ARCP but not college exams or vice versa.
• Explore how the assessment processes for WPBA and ARCP are delivered in different deaneries.