Undergraduate Procedural Skills Assessments (UPSAs)

The Undergraduate Procedural Skills Assessments (UPSAs) are formal assessments of competency in procedural skills and are required by the GMC. It is your responsibility to complete them in a timely manner. You must be signed off by an appropriately qualified assessor by completing the correct e-form in your logbook. For each skill we would expect that you will have multiple forms, to demonstrate continuous professional development and progression towards the appropriate level of competence.

By the end of year 3, you are required to be competent to perform the skills under direct supervision (level 2 on your UPSA e-forms) as a minimum. These UPSA will then be repeated in year 5 where they will need to demonstrated at level 3 competency (safe to practise with distant / indirect supervision) in order to graduate. This is regardless of the level of competency previous achieved.

You may complete UPSAs at any time but it is important that you plan ahead, looking for opportunities to achieve them. Discuss your UPSA requirements with your Clinical Placement Supervisor and aim to complete at least 3 UPSA in each of your first 3 placements. This will allow you time to develop your confidence and competence in the remaining blocks.

Undergraduate Procedural Skills Assessments (UPSA) in Year 3

N1 Perform patient observations and calculate Early Warning Score N2 Instruct a patient in collecting an MSSU and dipstick the sample N3 Take nose, throat or skin swabs N4 Venepuncture N5 Cannulation of a vein N6 Measure capillary blood glucose N7a Perform a peak flow N7b Inhaler technique N8 Administer oxygen and discuss its prescription N9 Perform a 12 lead ECG N10 Scrubbing up for a procedure

Prescribing and Medicine Safety Skills (PMS Skills)
Please also see section: Undergraduate Procedural Skills Assessments (UPSAs)- Validation and Notification

There are 5 prescribing and medicines safety tasks and 1 online drug calculation you need to complete during year 3 and you will be taught how to complete these tasks in your Friday SCT sessions on prescribing. These are opportunities to learn the crucial skills of prescribing and therapeutics. It will also support your learning for your Year 3 CCAs and the Prescribing Safety Assessment in Year 5. These must be completed and signed off by someone who is a prescriber themselves. This could include doctors, pharmacists and specialist nurses. You may complete these at any time you have the opportunity, but we recommend you complete at least 1 in each block.

You will be notified when the online drug calculation task is released, in December, and also of the deadline (mid-January) by which to complete the task. This allows for additional support to be offered to you if you do not reach the required pass mark.

Prescribing and Medicines Safety Skill	Block
Taking a medications history Prescribing Prescription review Therapeutic drug monitoring Providing information about drugs to patients	Blocks 1-4 (plus SSCP)
Performing an on-line drug calculation	Separate notification in December with deadline to complete by mid-January

All 10 UPSAs (achieving a minimum level 2 standard of competence under direct supervision) and six Prescribing and Medicines Safety Skills must be completed by the end of Clinical placements in Year 3 in order to satisfactorily pass your Clinical Placement Blocks overall.

Note: these assessments cannot be signed off by another student, relative or a medical student who happens to also work as a qualified member of healthcare staff.