Changes to medical specialty curricula
The health needs of the UK population are evolving, driven by a growing number of people with multiple co-morbidities, an ageing population and health inequalities.
To help adapt postgraduate training to prepare more medical graduates to deliver safe and effective general care in broad specialties, the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board (JRCPTB) introduced changes to medical specialty curricula in August 2022, following approval by the General Medical Council (GMC).
The physician specialties have been divided into two groups:
- Group 1, which would train in both internal medicine and specialty
- Group 2, which would train in specialty alone.
For the group 1 specialties, an indicative 12 months of Internal Medicine Training (IMT) has been incorporated into higher training, leading to the award of the Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) at the end of training.
Surveying academic trainees in specialty training
In May-July 2022, a voluntary survey was undertaken by academic trainees in integrated academic training (IAT) to explore their perceptions of the career impacts arising from these medical specialty curricula changes.
This survey was co-produced by the JRCPTB and academic clinicians representing the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), InterACT (the committee of local leads of IAT programmes), the Clinical Academic Training Forum (the UK-wide stakeholder group) and an academic trainee representative.
A report of the survey results can be found here.
This report includes further background information, methodology and demographics of survey respondents, as well as the full survey results.
Recommendations and action
The stakeholders are taking this survey and feedback from the trainees seriously.
A short-life Academic Training Working Group has been configured to provide high-level guidance and other outputs, including practical examples of flexible training solutions, aimed at both those who are in academic training and those that provide such training.
This Academic Training Working Group comprises leads from JCRPTB, the Royal Colleges, GMC, Post-graduate Deans and the Clinical Academic Training Forum, as well as trainee representatives.
The group has already met and will report back on progress via this webpage and other communication channels.