Excellence by design

These standards are for the development and design of postgraduate medical curricula. They require curricula to describe generic, shared and specialty-specific outcomes, to support doctors in understanding what is expected of them.

The standards and related guidance are part of our commitment to improving flexibility in postgraduate training. We want to help make training more flexible for doctors, and more responsive to patient and health service needs.

The standards should be used along with our range of supplementary guidance:

• Generic professional capabilities framework
• Generic professional capabilities: guidance on implementation
• Designing and maintaining postgraduate assessment programmes.

Our approval processes require organisations to show how their curriculum will meet the standards and requirements set out in this document.

This document works together with Promoting excellence: standards for medical education and training. Together, they provide a framework for the development, approval and provision of postgraduate medical education and training in the UK.

Inside Excellence by design

• Principles for all curricula (open at page 10)
• Theme 1: Purpose (open at page 14)
• Theme 2: Governance and strategic support (open at page 16)
• Theme 3: Programme of learning (open at page 18)
• Theme 4: Programme of assessment (open at page 20)
• Theme 5: Quality assurance and improvement (open at page 25)

Note: These standards were published in May 2017, and replaced Standards for curricula and assessment systems