GP leaders raise concerns over trainee assessment platform issues
GP leaders have raised concerns that updates to a trainee assessment platform is causing GP registrars and trainers ‘significant stress’.
BMA GP registrar committee co-chair Dr Oliver Salazar told registrars in an update the union had contacted ‘the relevant organisations’ for reassurance following updates to FourteenFish, the supplier used by the RCGP for its trainee portfolio.
GP registrars completing a workplace based assessment (WPBA) collect evidence for an educational supervisor’s report (ESR) every six months. At the end of training, annual review of competency progression (ARCP) panel decides on a trainee’s competence for licensing based on the evidence in the ESR and trainee portfolio.
A registrar’s placement assessor is expected to submit evidence for the ESR to the FourteenFish platform.
However, following recent updates to the platform, anyone completing a case must now register an account, a change which is causing ‘additional uncertainty’ and ‘significant stress for GP registrars and GP trainers’, according to Dr Salazar.
As well as this, the platform has been undergoing unannounced system maintenance since 27 January which the BMA said is ‘compounding existing concerns’.
Dr Salazar told registrars in his update the BMA has contacted ‘the relevant organisations’ asking for:
- ‘Urgent clarification as to whether the creation of an assessor account is genuinely mandatory;
- Timely communication to registrars to alleviate the significant stress being caused, no later than 28 January;
- Consideration of a practical workaround if changes are driven by security requirements, for example a ‘guest assessor’ function that does not require account creation;
- Clear assurance that registrars will not be penalised at interim ESR or ARCP for assessments delayed or prevented because of these changes while the issue remains unresolved.’
Dr Salazar added that the recent issues raised ‘broader questions about the reliance on commercial digital platforms for critical training and progression processes’.
It follows the removal of FourteenFish Consult, a free recording tool used by GP trainees to record consultations, last October.
The tool was developed to be used for the now-defunct Recorded Consultation Assessment (RCA), although the BMA argued it was still a useful, cost-effective and GDPR-compliant tool for trainees to record consultations.
FourteenFish was acquired by EMIS (now Optum) in 2022, and is used by around 13,000 GP trainees in the UK, according to its website.
A spokesperson for the RCGP told Pulse: ‘We were sorry to hear about the issues that registrars and trainers experienced yesterday due to the emergency essential maintenance on the FourteenFish portfolio.
‘We are in discussions with our suppliers about this issue and communications around the recent security upgrade that now requires all assessors to register an account.’
And a spokesperson for FourteenFish told Pulse: ‘We apologise for any inconvenience caused by recent unplanned maintenance and the changes which require non-users to register to submit cases.’
