SURGICAL CARE PRACTITIONERS -t-VERSION REPRO OP
The care curriculum
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The RCSEd and RCSEng have developed the SCP curriculum and register, as Bill Allum and Charles Auld explain
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he development of multidisciplinary team working is essential to delivering high-quality and safe patient care. Medical associate professionals (MAPs) are nonmedically qualified practitioners who work within multi-professional teams, and the group encompasses physician associates (PAs), anaesthesia associates (AAs) and surgical care practitioners (SCPs). The regulation of these professional groups was set out by the Department of Health and Social Care in its publication entitled The regulation of medical associate professionals in the UK in 20191. Although statutory regulation was granted for PAs and AAs, with the General Medical Council (GMC) as the regulatory body, the UK Government stated that it would only consider statutory regulation for SCPs if recruitment to SCP training posts was open to a direct-entry route – that is, for those SCPs not from a healthcare background. In response, the options for this route are actively being explored by the SCP National Advisory Committee at Health Education England (HEE). In a previous edition of Surgeons’ News2, we addressed the need for better recognition and improved regulation of SCPs. This included the need to develop a voluntary yet formal register of SCPs similar to the Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register (PAMVR), implemented by the Faculty of Physician Associates for PAs, which has been crucial to the approval of statutory regulation 16 | Surgeons’ News | March 2023
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(see www.fparcp.co.uk for more information). More recently, the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) has set up a voluntary register of AAs (see www.rcoa.ac.uk). WORKING TOGETHER To support this case for statutory regulation and to demonstrate a commitment to SCPs, the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh (RCSEd) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCSEng) agreed to work together on a bi-collegiate basis and as equal partners. As the surgical bodies currently championing and supporting the work of the extended surgical team (EST), they formed the joint EST Project Board with two principal aims: To revise and update the SCP curriculum, previously owned by the RCSEng, for the MSc in Surgical Care Practice to support the postgraduate training for SCPs and provide a future route to facilitate direct entry to SCP roles. To develop a managed voluntary register (MVR) for SCPs. The two work streams had representatives from both surgical colleges, HEE, SCPs from different surgical specialties and programme directors from higher education institutes running the MSc programme, as well as representatives from governance and the legal profession.
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CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK SCPs have become well established in healthcare organisations and this has been shown to enhance the capability of the surgical team to
The new curriculum and MVR will ensure SCPs are well qualified and will be a great asset to the surgical team
Bill Allum RCS England Council Member and Chair, Workforce and Training Committee. Chair, SCP National Advisory Committee
Charles Auld Former Lead for Faculty of Perioperative Care, past Council member RCSEd
develop professionally. They support and enhance training opportunities for surgical trainees and provide surgical services that complement the medically trained workforce. The educational governance of SCPs has expanded since the first SCP curriculum was published in 2006. In addition, there have been significant changes to curricula following the GMC publication of Excellence by design (GMC 2017)3, which sets the standard for postgraduate medical curricula, with inclusion of practice-based outcomes, as well as defined evidence of practising professionally. The 2022 SCP curriculum revision incorporates the principles of Excellence by design by using workbased assessments to provide evidence of capability in practice. The revision has built on the 2014 version, providing generic and specialty-specific knowledge, and clinical and technical skills. A key component of this curriculum revision is the inclusion of those capabilities that define the professional role of an SCP alongside the clinical and technical training. These are based on the four pillars of advanced practice defined in the