Hazards ahead?
In the most radical (and politically driven) changes to the National Health Service since it was founded, the training and assessment of doctors will focus more on what they do than on what they know. The UK's lack of tools to assess doctors' performance in the workplace has caused the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board to turn to US workplace assessement tools developed for medical practice. These have not been designed or evaluated for application to psychiatric practice, nor do they allow for independent evaluation. It remains unclear how workplace assessment in psychiatric training will tie in with national examinations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists' membership examination (the MRCPsych); nor is it clear whether service users are yet to have a say in such an important matter as the training of their doctors.