Bill Harvey: Masters of the universe

So, all the professional bodies have now offered their qualified support for the proposals of the GOC Education Strategic Review as featured in last week’s issue (19.02.21, page 18). I say qualified, because many still have concerns about the funding of the new proposed strategy and also about the timeframe within which to implement the changes. Also, good to see the AOP’s ongoing resistance to the introduction of an apprenticeship approach to qualification.

Gone will be the two step (undergrad and pre-reg) approach and in comes the requirement for much greater in-practice experience (48 weeks) throughout training – something I think few would argue against but many will wonder how it will be funded. Both funding and the ‘need for speed’ do make the process vulnerable to unwanted commercial influence if you think carefully about how this will most likely be implemented.