Share your views about the FRCA, FFICM and FFPMRCA examinations

Published: 15/02/2022

The Royal College of Anaesthetists has commissioned an independent external review of the FRCA, FFICM and FFPMRCA examinations, and is inviting Members and stakeholders to give their opinions as part of the process. The Faculty of Pain Medicine fully supports the review which will be carried out by Professor John McLachlan, following an open tender process.

Whilst the process of the review will scrutinise all aspects of the examinations process, it will pay particular attention to experiences arising from the September 2021 FRCA Final Written Exam and the October 2021 FFICM OSCE.

We are aware that as part of this review, it is vital that the voices of our Members and stakeholders are heard and reviewed in order to improve the delivery of our specialty examinations.

To support this, the RCoA are sharing two surveys and would encourage our networks and candidates to complete.

  • Anaesthetists and intensivists in Training, Regional Advisers and Trainer networks survey - we have created a survey to facilitate the collation and submission of feedback on the issues that will be covered as part of the examinations review. The External Review of Examinations survey may have been circulated to networks already, and therefore we are extending the deadline for responses for a further three weeks to ensure we capture all feedback.  This survey will remain open until Monday 7 March 2022.  We encourage networks to share the above link widely within their own networks to maximise the feedback we are able to collect.
  • Candidates and Examiners survey– we have created a specific survey if you sat or contributed to the delivery of an examination during 2020-2021.  We are very keen to receive the first-hand feedback from those who are directly assessed or in contact with the examination.  This survey will remain open until Monday 7 March 2022.

We encourage all our members to be honest and open in feeding back to us and providing our external reviewer, the College and the Faculties with information in order to improve the examination process.

All responses will be kept confidential and passed to Professor. J McLachlan who is undertaking the review on our behalf.