Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB)
Authors: Peter Rubin
Journal: The Lancet (2007)

In their Comment on selection for specialist training (March 24, p 967),1Brown M Boon N Brooks N et al.Modernising Medical Careers, Medical Training Application Service, and the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board: time for the emperors to don their clothes.Lancet. 2007; 369: 967-968Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (9) Google Scholar Morris Brown and colleagues refer to “grave short-comings” of the UK's Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) but omit to say what these are. They correctly also refer to confusion over who does what in postgraduate medical education. PMETB was established after recommendations going back at least to the Merrison Committee of the 1970s,2Merrison ReportReport of the Committee of Enquiry into the Regulation of the Medical Profession. HM Stationery Office, London1975Google Scholar but particularly in the wake of the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry,3The Inquiry into the management of care of children receiving complex heart surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary, 1984–1995. CM 5207. Stationery Office, Norwich2001Google Scholar which concluded that postgraduate medical education should be regulated, just as undergraduate had been—very successfully—for nearly 150 years. PMETB is quite separate from the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) initiative. PMETB creates standards, MMC creates structures. PMETB is an independent, UK-wide body with statutory powers over the content and standards of postgraduate medical education. Our responsibilities include approving specialist training curricula and assessments, but these are devised and submitted to us by the medical profession, through the medical Royal Colleges, often acting in conjunction with the specialist associations. The curricula are not dependent on a particular type of training structure, but the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that they require must be demonstrated by appropriate assessments before a certificate confirming completion of training can be issued. Since we began operation in September, 2005, we have achieved much: in addition to reviewing and approving all curricula to ensure consistency across specialties, we have introduced the first ever generic standards for training, undertaken the first ever survey of UK trainee doctors, developed and implemented new routes to the specialist and general practitioner (GP) registers, and certified more than 5000 doctors, enabling them to take up GP and consultant posts in the UK. PMETB is not responsible for the operational aspects of selection, or for workforce issues such as the number of training posts. We do, however, set the overarching standards within which selection must operate. We reviewed the framework for delivery of the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) against these principles in August, 2006, and noted some concerns, but were assured that these were being addressed. Our letter to MTAS has been in the public domain for some time.4PMETB's response to COPMeD presentation on the proposed arrangements for the national recruitment and selection process into specialty run-through training.http://www.pmetb.org.uk/index.php?id=808Google Scholar We undertook to review the operation of the new system once it had been established. This review will take place, looking forward to 2008 and drawing on the learning of 2007. PR is Chairman of the UK General Medical Council Education Committee.