ARCPs will be held online permanently
Posted on: Tuesday 4 January 2022
Author: Konrad Obiora
From 1 January 2022, we will be holding our Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCP) meetings online permanently.
In May 2020, we decided to hold our ARCP meetings online on an interim basis during the COVID-19 pandemic so that we could continue to review the progress of pharmaceutical medicine trainees towards completing the PMST programme. Following the UK Government’s decision in the middle of 2021 to relax most of the COVID restrictions in England, we surveyed trainees, educational supervisors and ARCP reviewers for their views on how we should deliver ARCP meetings after the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 26 July 2021, we invited 157 trainees, educational supervisors and ARCP reviewers to complete a short online questionnaire by selecting one of the following three options for delivering ARCP meetings after the COVID-19 pandemic:
Option 1: in-person ARCP meetings
Option 2: remote meetings
Option 3: combination of in-person and remote meetings
The survey closed on Monday 23 August 2021. A total of 83 people (52.9%) participated in the survey (chart 1) of whom 61 respondents (73.5%) preferred option 2 (chart 2).
Our Deanery Executive Group endorsed a recommendation to hold ARCP meetings online permanently based on the survey results. The recommendation was approved by the pharmaceutical medicine Specialist Advisory Committee of the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board (JRCPTB) in November 2021.
Read more about our ARCP process.
