Introduction to Quality Assurance of the Foundation Programme (QAFP)

The GMC (responsible for Foundation Year 1) and PMETB (responsible for Foundation year 2) have been developing a joint process to quality assure the foundation programme, known as QAFP.

The QAFP pilot 2005 to 2007

The GMC and PMETB are undertaking a joint pilot to develop a process to quality assure the foundation programme.

The Foundation Programme was introduced in 2005 to train doctors during their first two years after graduating from medical school.

The pilot helped the GMC and PMETB develop the standards that deaneries will have to attain in providing foundation training, and the outcomes that doctors must demonstrate in order to complete the first year of the Foundation Programme.

What has the pilot involved?

The pilot involves gathering information from six deaneries and visiting them to assess their provision of Foundation Training.

The six deaneries who volunteered to participate in the pilot are:

• East of Scotland
• Northern Ireland
• North of Scotland
• Wales
• West Midlands and
• Wessex

For upcoming visits to deaneries view the calendar of visits.

Consultation aided the process

The GMC and PMETB also ran a public consultation on QAFP from July to September 2006. The results of the consultation were fed into the pilot process.

Reports of pilot visits

The pilot will be completed in late 2007.

• View reports of the pilot visits to the North of Scotland, Wales and West Midlands Deaneries in 2006
• Reports of the pilot visits to the East of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wessex Deaneries will be available on this website later in 2007.

The live QAFP process

From late 2007 onwards QAFP will be ‘live’.

QAFP monitors whether the Standards for Training for the Foundation Programme which are contained within The New Doctor 2007 and the Outcomes for F1 are being met.

Standards for training which deaneries need to demonstrate

Download Standards for Training for the Foundation Programme(93kb, pdf).

Outcomes which Foundation year one doctors need to meet

Download the outcomes which Foundation year one doctors need to meet (53kb, pdf).

A four stage process

QAFP is a four stage process:

1. Information gathering

Deaneries provide information in response to a self-assessment document which is based on the Standards for Training for the Foundation Programme;

2. Visiting

A team of visitors considers the information provided by the deanery and carries out a visit to the deanery in order to verify the information provided. Verification is carried out through meetings with deanery personnel, members of the local faculty (for example, consultants responsible for training Foundation doctors) and Foundation doctors. For more information about QAFP visitors.

3. Reporting

The visit team produces a report of their findings. Reports are confirmed with the deanery who provide a formal response to the report, and endorsed by the GMC Education Committee and the PMETB Training Committee. Reports and the deanery responses are published on the GMC and PMETB websites.

4. Follow-up

The reports make requirements and recommendations for the deanery to improve. These requirements and recommendations are followed up by the GMC and PMETB in order to monitor the Deanery’s progress.

We are currently in the process of confirming the detail of the live QAFP process. Further information will be published on these pages in late 2007. Please direct any enquiries to qafp@gmc-uk.org.