Mandatory RCGP Membership: Part 1

Medicine

Congratulations to me, I’ve secured a GP training post.

No popping corks yet though.

You see, having successfully gained a spot to train as a GP, I have now been emailed by the Deanery, on behalf of the Royal College of General Practitioners, to ask me to take out a membership as a GP trainee. “AiT” (or “Associate in Training”). £433/year straight off the bat, into the coffers of the RCGP, and that doesn’t even include any exam fees.

That’s right: you see, as a trainee, I am expected to pay for membership of a Royal College, to gain access to an online portfolio platform called “FourteenFish”, to record (anonymised) patient interactions, chuck in a list of any CPD (Continuous Professional Development) I’ve been undertaking, sign off some case-based discussions, and set some goals for myself.

When challenged, the RCGP will tell you that membership of the College is not actually mandatory for trainees, but that you must have access to FourteenFish in order to progress in your training. There is a not-very-well-publicised option to pay ONLY for the FourteenFish platform, but this still works out at £935 £963 across the three years (with no option to extend, which presumably impacts those who are LTFT).

There is nothing special about this platform: it is little more than a database of log entries, with a little bit of auditing and access control sprinkled on top of it, to stop you doing things like changing your training records in retrospect. It’s the sort of thing you could get a semi-competent developer to hack together in a couple of days.

£900+ per trainee. For access to a system to record CPD.

Dear RCGP and FourteenFish. If you are reading this, let me make myself clear:

  1. This is a tax on trainees and is completely unjustified.

  2. If access to a specific portfolio platform is required for GP trainees to progress in their training, this MUST be made available to trainees as standard.

  3. £900+ for your rink-a-dink plaform is a joke. FourteenFish, owned by EMIS (.pdf, 123kB), in turn owned by UnitedHealth (.pdf, 382kB), do not need this money.

Incensed, I’ve been in touch with both my deanery and the ever-opaque RCGP; my entire correspondence with the RCGP is published here.