In year 4, you are required to complete 3 new UPSAs, as well as continuing to practice the Year 3 UPSAs.

The year 4 UPSAs are outlined below:

UPSA	Description	Competency Requirement
N11	Female Catheterisation	2
N12	Perform Ophthalmoscopy	3
N13	Perform Otoscopy	3

These are formal assessments of competency in skills and are required by the GMC. It is your responsibility to complete them in a timely manner. You must be signed off and your competence graded by an appropriately qualified assessor, on the correct form in your logbook.

You may complete UPSAs at any time but it is important to plan ahead to consider in which blocks you are most likely to be able to achieve supervision of which skills. There may be times when unexpected opportunities arise to perform an UPSA, and these should be fully embraced. However in general; ophthalmoscopy will be easiest learned in an ophthalmology placement, otoscopy in ENT and female urinary catheterisation in women’s health. We also strongly advise that you continue to practice skills and complete UPSAs from the Year 3 list

Important: If you are repeating a year or have had some time out of programme AND were previously on the old M-UPSA system please contact your sector year lead and the clinical skills lead at the start of the year to discuss your individual requirements.

For a full list of Year 4 UPSA , with descriptions, visit the UPSA guide on 1medinfo

Prescribing and Medicine Safety Skills (PMS Skills)

There are 6 prescribing and medicines safety tasks for you to complete during Year 4. These are opportunities to learn the crucial skills of prescribing and knowledge of therapeutics. These will support your learning for CCAs and the Prescribing Safety Assessment in Year 5. These must be completed and signed off by someone who is qualified in prescribing. This could include doctors, pharmacists and specialist nurses. You may complete these at any time you have the opportunity, but it is anticipated that this will be most easily fulfilled in the following blocks:

Prescribing and Medicines Safety Skill	Block
Prescribing	MSK, Children’s Health
Planning management in prescribing	GP, Ophthalmology
Prescription review	ACH, GP
Drug interactions	ACH, Women’s Health, MSK
Adverse drug reactions	Mental Health
Data interpretation for medication prescribing	Infectious disease, Oncology

All UPSAs  and Prescribing and Medicines Safety Skills must be completed by the end of Block 8 in Year 4 in order to satisfactorily pass your Clinical Placement Blocks overall.

Please also see section: Undergraduate Procedural Skills Assessments (UPSAs)