UKFPO Bulletin

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May Bulletin

National Walking Month

International day of the Midwife – 5 May

Other national campaigns this month

Action for happiness calendar – ‘Meaningful May’

Introduction

Welcome to the May bulletin!

The sun is shining, it is getting (slightly) warmer, flowers have bloomed – this can only mean that Foundation Programme ARCPs are approaching! Please make sure that you have got everything done that you need to do, and if you are not sure then ask your educational supervisor, foundation training programme director or a more senior colleague who has been through it before. There is also lots of information about ARCP on the UKFPO ARCP webpage.

Assessment – what is it for?

ARCP is a form of assessment. To ‘assess’ could be considered simply to come to a view about something, so that we make assessments all the time in our personal and professional lives. For instance, we might assess what the weather is like before we decide what clothes to wear, or we might assess what would be a good choice from a restaurant menu. Without thinking about it, lots of factors come into making those assessment.

When it comes to the Foundation Programme, we think about:

  • formative assessment: designed to try to help you develop and reach your full potential as a doctor
  • summative assessment: to ensure that you have reached the appropriate standard to move on, either into the next stage of the Foundation Programme or the next stage of medical training

ARCP is a summative assessment, which means that all requirements must be met, but hopefully you have had lots of formal and informal formative assessments as you have gone through your Foundation Programme. This could have been some supervised learning events (SLEs), questions from your senior colleagues about why you have taken a particular course of action, and feedback that you have received about your performance.

As you progress through your career, you will find yourself making these assessments about other doctors and I hope that your experiences in the Foundation Programme will have helped you to develop a style of doing this that helps our future doctors to develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes.

As ever, look after yourselves and each other.

Best wishes

Dr Mike Masding, UKFPO National Clinical Director

Reflection

As the end of the training year nears, how are you feeling about your plans for the next training year, or for August onwards if you’re not continuing your training? Have a look at our resources to support your reflection and career planning processes.

Spotlight on educational resources

Learn how to reduce medication errors with MedicinesComplete – Free resources Take advantage of the free resources provided by Medicines Complete, with a range of free online courses and webinars to view in your own time.

Webinars

Recordings

The following recordings are now available on our webinars webpage:

‘Patient Safety – an introduction for foundation doctors’ held on 15 April 2025

‘Preparing for ARCP – Time to polish up your e-portfolio’ held on 19 March 2025

If there are any specific topics you think we have missed or you wish for us to cover in our educational webinar series, please send your suggestions to foundation.educationandsupport@nhs.net 

Opportunities and events

Humans of the Foundation Programme

See our Humans of the Foundation Programme webpage for details of this exciting creative writing initiative, including the submission form for articles of your own, and published articles.

New articles published this month:

NHS England Medical Training Review (MTR) call for evidence is now open

The NHSE MTR call for evidence will form part of the Review’s evidence base, alongside the outputs of listening events, regional events and targeted focus groups with stakeholders, including patients and patient advocacy groups. The call for evidence is now open until 20 May 2025.

The link to the call for evidence can be found here: https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/medical-education-programme-review/

UKFPO Fellow Recruitment 2025-26

Thank you to everyone who applied for the 2025-26 UKFPO Fellow position. We had a lot of great applications this year and look forward to introducing our two new Fellows soon.

Elearning for healthcare update

Review the April 2025 elfh update