Workplace Assessment in Crisis? – The Way Forward

Abstract

Introduction

A recent Royal College of Physicians’ (RCP) study on assessment raises serious questions for workplace assessment. To address these, a system that bridges the gap from competence to performance and integrates supervised learning events (SLEs) that are formative in purpose with summative assessment of performance by entrustable professional activities (EPAs) is recommended.

Aims and objectives

As a working group on assessment in psychiatry, we were interested in the RCP findings which represent a significant milestone in studies of workplace assessment. The RCP aims were to evaluate the feasibility, validity and educational value of using existing WPBA tools but for different assessment purposes and processes.

Results

These were based on the General Medical Council (GMC) working party on assessment. The RCP revised its assessment processes to differentiate between assessments of development and performance. The former are formative and aim to identify a trainee's areas of strength and development; the latter are summative and aim to determine fitness to progress. Of note is that the same workplace based assessment (WPBA) tool can be used for each type of assessment; the assessment's purpose is the discriminating factor.

Conclusions

Initial design of the requisite EPAs requires value judgments by trainers and trainees alike on what represent core units of work. EPAs can contribute directly and more meaningfully to ARCP progression decisions.

Recommendations

Inclusion of the required level of supervision as part of SLE feedback enables future decisions on meeting performance standards.

Trainee/trainer

Interaction in this educational process.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.