Signposting GP trainees to relevant learning opportunities in hospital posts:the Super-condensed Curriculum Guide

UK three-year GP specialty training programmes consist of 18 months in hospital posts and 18 months in general practice. Within the hospital setting, clinical supervisors of GP trainees may have difficulty determining which learning opportunities available within the post are most relevant to training for a future career in general practice. Feedback from GP trainees has indicated that there is a lack of consistency in hospital posts regarding relevance of training for general practice. The aim of the project was to provide support to the hospital supervisors in order to improve the overall quality of hospital posts in GPST programmes and their relevance to General Practice training, and to provide guidance to GP trainees to target their learning most effectively within each specialty post to improve relevance to future career. The deanery set out to develop a tool, the Super Condensed Curriculum Guide (SCCG) consisting of a set of documents created for a specialty with involvement from stakeholder groups. It was intended that this guide would stand alongside the relevant part of the GP curriculum. A programme of familiarisation and initial training for clinical supervisors was delivered. Take-up of the clinical supervisor training sessions was not uniform. Following favourable initial feedback from trainee groups and clinical supervisors across the region, the guides were developed for the remaining specialties in the programme. Trainees were also informed about the guide and how it might help focus their learning in a hospital post. Feedback from trainees across the specialties was positive, but more needs to be done to engage clinical supervisors across the range of specialties. This will improve the utility of the tool, help to guide the clinical supervisor in their teaching, and make sure each post is as educationally effective as possible.