The General Medical Council recognises that postgraduate medical training is now capability and not time-based. This means that once a trainee has achieved all the required capabilities for their curriculum, they are eligible for their certificate of completion of training (CCT). East of England has produced this policy to assist educators in navigating requests from trainees who wish to bring forward their CCT date.

FAQs

What are the eligibility criteria? – All of the following criteria must be met to be eligible:

• The trainee must have passed both the AKT and SCA.
• The most recent ESR states that they are competent/excellent in at least 10 of the 13 professional capabilities and meeting expectations in the others.
• There should be no deficit in workplace-based assessments (Clinical Observation Tool, Clinical Assessment Tool, Clinical Case Reviews). Clinical Case Reviews must relate to actual clinical encounters.
• There must be evidence of exposure within traditional out of hours.
• The Quality Improvement Project should have been completed.
• They must have a satisfactory Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire and Multi-Source Feedback for your ST3 phase.
• There should be a learning event analysis for each phase of training.
• They must have completed all the mandatory Clinical Examination and Procedural Skills and a range of others. All of these should be graded as being able to perform competently without needing supervision.
• Their most recent ARCP panel outcome must be an outcome 1.
• They must not have any outstanding revalidation concerns.
• They cannot be applying for a dual CCT in Public Health and GP.
• Academic fellows may be eligible but the reduction in training time needs to come from the clinical component and not the academic component. They MUST have spent time in GP.

When should Trainees apply to bring forward their CCT date? – They must be in ST3 and start the process not before or after 27 months of whole-time equivalent training. Applications before this time should be deferred. Those requested after that time shall be politely declined.

What are the next steps? – It is the responsibility of the trainee to contact you as their educational supervisor stating they wish to bring their CCT date forward. You must check whether they meet all the eligibility criteria and if so, use the template letter to request a central ARCP panel. This may be sent to the assessment team via your local admins. The central assessment team will arrange a central ARCP panel that the trainee does not attend. A FULL ESR will be needed two weeks before the intended date of that ARCP panel.

What if the trainee has not met the criteria and disagrees with my decision? – If they have not met the criteria, they are ineligible and as such the primary care school will support that decision. It would be sensible to document this within the educator notes.

How much time can the CCT date forward by? – The maximum allowable is four months whole-time equivalent.

If the reduction in training time is agreed what happens then? – The central ARCP panel will seek confirmation from the Postgraduate Dean and if agreed will inform the trainee of the new CCT date and liaise with the RCGP. It is their responsibility to start to apply to join the national performers list at that time.

What happens if the trainee needs to extend their training again for any reason? – Please note that the reduction of four months training time cannot be added to any subsequent training if an extension is required.

Please click the image preview below to see the proces flowchart.