The Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB)

This much (and unfairly) maligned government body has a number of key functions that relate to you as GP Specialist Training Registrars:

1. It quality assures the activities of deaneries and individual training programmes.
2. It quality assures the MRCGP.
3. It assesses equivalent experience for trainees who have not completed a conventional specialist training programme – the so-called article 11 route.
4. It issues your certificate of completion of training (CCT).

Extensive information can be found on their website via the following link:

PMETB Website

CCTs.

For virtually all GPSTRs the route to gaining your CCT is via the certification unit at the RCGP.  All of the School’s training programmes are fully approved, so in theory all you need to do is to satisfactorily complete your posts and pass the MRCGP examination.

There is no need to collect VTR 1 and 2 forms for those of you who commenced training after 1^st August 2007.

Your application for a CCT is now automated and can be made simply by pressing a button on your e-portfolio after you have been signed of in your final ARCP.  The button somewhat miraculously becomes active once the college has been notified of your success – a process that usually takes a couple of weeks.

More information is available on the relevant part of the RCGP website via the following link:

RCGP Certification Unit Home Page

Article 11 (Equivalent Experience)

Dealing with the PMETB can be quite daunting, particularly in the case of article 11 applications.  If you think that you will need to go down this route, you would probably be wise to contact a friendly local GP Associate Director for help early in the process, via your local PGMC. 

The deanery is always keen to help its trainees with article 11 applications, and Bill and Paul can also advise you if you run into a particularly thorny issue.  Contact them via main deanery office.

In particular it is worth knowing that:

• The PMETB doesn’t accept electronic ARCP outcome forms – so you will need to get these printed off and authenticated.
• Article 11 applications take quite a long time to process – so start your application well in advance of your anticipated date of completion of training.
• The fee for Article 11 applications is set somewhere between “brisk” and “excessive”, so start saving…!