PACES: Organising centres, host examiners and examiners

Practical Assessment of Clinical Examinations Skills (PACES) is considerably more complicated to deliver and is organised on a ‘College of Entry’ basis. Candidates are required to apply to the College of their choice rather than by location. This is because candidates are not allowed to sit the exam in a centre where they work, have worked in the previous 12 months or have been examined previously.

Candidates taking PACES must be examined by ten different examiners in a clinical setting and see at least six real patients with specific but different conditions and two surrogate patients testing their communication skills.

PACES is a crucial part of assessment, providing a dialogue between the examiners and the candidates and allowing trainee physicians to demonstrate their clinical skills. Every time the examination runs successfully, it is thanks to dedicated teamwork behind the scenes, in advance and on the day.

Each PACES diet starts with Edinburgh College Examinations Department establishing which centres in the UK are prepared to host the examination during the next session of the exam.

Hosting PACES can be an onerous task and the majority of Edinburgh centres in Scotland ‘host’ the exam three diets a year, every year. This contribution is huge. The Edinburgh College is also extremely fortunate to have a number of very loyal centres in England and Wales and, as a result, the College is able to deliver about 300 candidate PACES places per diet.

After the exam has been completed, the host examiner is responsible for collating the candidate results, ensuring all the centre expenses have been paid and that those who deserve recognition for giving up their valuable time, often at weekends, are suitably thanked.

All this effort comes on top of the day job!

A dedicated pool of examiners is equally vital (more than 200 each diet). Examiners come not only from the local area but also from across the UK. Some are even based abroad and travel here especially to fulfil this important role. They are not paid for the work but contribute their time, knowledge and skills for the advancement of patient care, to educate trainees and for their own professional development.

Co-ordinating the examiner timetable can be an intricate puzzle and keeping all the different pieces in place demands some well-developed arm-twisting skills, a degree of ‘cut and paste’, but above all the co-operation and help of the busy clinicians involved.