The GP trainee portfolio doesn’t have to be scary. I’ll share some simple hacks, which will save you time and help you sail through training! Most trainees consider the GP trainee portfolio to be a massive burden, purely due to the sheer amount of time commitment required.
What is the FourteenFish GP trainee portfolio?
The GP trainee portfolio forms one of the three components of your MRCGP (Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners), alongside the Applied Knowledge Test and Simulated Consultation Assessment.
This very much falls under the workplace-based assessment (WPBA), which is the continual assessment throughout your training. Most trainees consider the FourteenFish GP trainee portfolio a massive burden due to the sheer amount of time commitment required. The GP trainee portfolio doesn’t have to be scary, and our GP trainee support package shares easy hacks to make your life easier!
What is the purpose of the FourteenFish GP trainee portfolio?
Although exams are important, they do not provide evidence for learning and reflection based on real experiences. The GP trainee portfolio and WPBA work in tandem to evaluate our progress in areas of professional practice which are best tested in the workplace. So what’s the key?
To successfully complete GP training, you must evidence your assessments, as approved by the GMC. Use the FourteenFish GP trainee portfolio to showcase your real-life experiences and progress.
If there’s a single take-home from reading this blog, consider your FourteenFish portfolio a snapshot of your ST1, ST2 and ST3 competence. If you were to look back at it, you should see a significant improvement in your skills and confidence.
What do I need to do to pass the GP trainee portfolio?
This guide is not a thorough breakdown of the GP trainee portfolio, but I will share some key links to familiarise yourself with!
First, let’s break the FourteenFish GP trainee portfolio into three components.
1. Complete the mandatory assessments outlined by the RCGP.
You must complete a specified number of mandatory assessments in each training year. The RCGP have a helpful table which can be found under the heading; Mandatory evidence sheet – WPBA numbers for each year of training.
You may be familiar with Case-based discussions (CBD) and Mini consultation evaluation exercises (MiniCEX), but you may not be familiar with newer assessments such as; Care Assessment Tools (CATs) and Audio Consultation Observation Tools (Audio COT).
The FourteenFish portfolio has all of your assessments combined into one area, and your clinical and educational supervisors should be able to guide you through each assessment.
2. Collect evidence and demonstrate progression using learning logs.
The learning log is arguably the most challenging component of the workplace-based assessment, and it will require the most amount of personal effort during your training years.
The thirteen curriculum capabilities are central to your learning logs. A capability is a broad topic from RCGP which means you have the ability, knowledge and skills necessary for professional practice.
You are expected to demonstrate evidence of progression under each capability bi-annually.
The learning logs provide the scope to log a learning experience relevant to a capability. For example, if you’ve explored and recommended alternative referral pathways for a patient, you have demonstrated “community orientation.”
Our GP trainee support package demonstrates this with examples of learning logs with actual curriculum linkage and justification.
You can see the RCGPs guide on learning logs by clicking here.
3. Evidence your mandatory training.
The RCGP outlines the mandatory requirements, and you must revisit them annually as they may change.
Examples include; Basic life support, adult and child safeguarding, form R and probity declarations.
We hope that you have found this blog helpful. It’s a very basic snapshot of the FourteenFish GP trainee portfolio aimed at new GP trainees.
