PDP for Trainees

RCGP GP trainees will notice that the PDP area is different to that on the previous ePortfolio. This is to bring it more in line with the post-CCT PDP.

Your Personal Development Plan is centred around goals that you agree with your Educational Supervisor at the end of a review period (in preparation for your ESR). Throughout the review period, the idea is that you review and update your goals. Some of these you will complete, and some you will carry forwards to your next review period. You can suggest new PDP goals as ideas before your ESR and then your Supervisor agrees with you which ones to use in the Agreed PDP.

In summary, there are 3 stages to the PDP process:

1. Review progress against previously agreed PDP goals
2. Suggest New PDP entries
3. Agree with your Supervisor the PDP for your next review period

You should work through each stage in order. If you haven't said which entries you wish to carry over, they won't appear in the 'Suggest new entries area' and if you don't agree PDP entries with your supervisor, they then won't appear in step 1 of your next review period.

We go into more depth for each of these 3 stages below and there are also some links to frequently asked questions:

What if you agree a new goal during a review period?

What if there aren't PDP entries to review?

Remember there are 2 sections that you can see PDP on the portfolio overview page:

For reviewing progress of any previously agreed PDP goals or to add new agreed goals during your current review period, visit the PDP review section. To propose new PDP goals for your next review period, you will need to go to the New PDP entries section in 'Preparing for your ESR'.

Review progress against previously agreed PDP goals

When your previous ESR is signed off, your goals should appear in the PDP review section:

To review an entry, click the relevant entry or you can click the PDP title and you will be taken to your page where you can see all PDP entries for review.

As you can see from the screenshot above, if you say that you haven't yet completed this goal then you are given the option to carry this over to your next review period.

What if you agree a new goal during a review period?

Visit the Review of your PDP progress page by clicking on the PDP title from the portfolio overview screen or the Review of your PDP progress link shown in the screenshot above.

On this page, click the link to manually add a new agreed PDP entry and you will then be able to review this as you go through the review period along with your other goals.

What if there aren't PDP entries to review?

This can be the case if:

Your previous ESR has not yet been signed off

If this is the case once your ESR is signed off, the PDP entries should be carried forwards into your new review period.

This is your first review period on the system

Click through to Enter your goals from your last review. If you do have previously agreed PDP goals from your previous post, then you can add these manually or you will also see a link: "if there weren't any previous PDP goals then you can skip this". You might agree some early goals with your Educational Supervisor (in which case you can add them manually) or you can then suggest new PDP goal ideas in preparing for your ESR.

No agreed entries were added to the previous review period (as described in Agreeing the PDP for the next review period)

Suggesting new PDP entries

You will see another PDP section in the ESR preparation area:

Important: You should first review all your previously agreed PDP goals (as described above) before visiting this section. Otherwise the system won't know which entries you intend to carry forwards.

If you have said you will carry over any entries, the system asks you to confirm this on first visiting this page:

Simply click 'Add' to bring these forwards, which will then prompt you to add a new target date.

Once this is done, you will see a link to add any new ideas:

Once you are happy that you have added all the entries you wish to carry over and any new ideas you can let your Supervisor know as they have to finalise the agreed PDP.

Agreeing the PDP for the next review period

Your Educational Supervisor has to finalise the agreed PDP and this, similar to the two steps above this, should only be done after the first two steps.

First, click through to the 'Prepare' link in the ESR preparation section of the trainees' portfolio overview screen:

This takes you through to the ESR preparation page. The Personal Development plan is low down on the page after the action plan section:

Here you can click the pencil to comment on the quality and progress by the trainee on the previously agreed PDP goals. 

Click through to Manage the Agreed PDP. You will then be presented with any entries that the trainee has indicated they wish to carry over and any new ideas for PDP goals:

As the Supervisor, you can then agree with the trainee which goals you wish to progress or not and you can also add any new ones by using the Add PDP item button. You should also see any review entries not being carried forwards.