From ward to world
Dr James Murphy on the work of the UK Foundation Programme Office Advisory Board
As a foundation doctor you will have strong opinions on how training can be improved. In the past your brilliant ideas may have gone no further than a discussion in the staff canteen, but not any more. Plans are afoot to listen to the experiences of UK doctors, and bring about real improvements in foundation training.
In the past your brilliant ideas may have gone no further than a discussion in the staff canteen, but not any more
The force that can bring about these changes is the UK Foundation Programme Office (UKFPO), the agency responsible for administering the UK Foundation Programme and its curriculum. Over the next year the UK Foundation Programme Curriculum will be reviewed, so the UKFPO appointed myself and Dr Kate Emmerson as national doctor advisers, to help tap into the opinions of doctors.
We set up the UKFPO Doctors Advisory Board, made up of F1 and F2 representatives from across the UK. Each representative is responsible for canvassing the views of doctors in their region and expressing their opinions at meetings chaired by the advisers that oversee the curriculum review. The inaugural meeting of the Doctors Advisory Board took place on 7 May 2009 in London. Here foundation school representatives explored their role and left the day keen to get to work with senior policy makers, hammering out what trainees want improving.
We hope to emulate the success of the UKFPO Medical Student Board (MSB), which was set up last year to help the UKFPO work with final year students to improve the process of applying for F1 jobs. While the F1 job application process will never be perfect, I was struck by the number of improvements initiated by MSB since I went through the system two years ago.
Through the Advisory Board junior doctors will now be able to shape their training. The Board has the potential to enable junior doctors to take control of their training by providing a direct link to the heart of the Foundation Programme administration. The establishment is moving away from relying purely on academics in ivory towers and realising the importance of engaging with those of us working on the shop floor.
It is up to us to seize the opportunity to engage with policy makers who have a direct impact on all our working lives. I would encourage all junior doctors to engage with their local UKFPO representative.
Dr James Murphy is an F2 doctor at Watford General Hospital. He can be contacted for more information by email, or futher details can be found on the Foundation Programme website.