Make Sure Your CSR is Completed BEFORE your ESR is Due
Workplace Based Assessment (WPBA) builds up a qualitative picture of your performance in training. For those in hospital posts your clinical development is assessed by your Clinical Supervisor. Your should have one Clinical Supervisors Report (CSR) per hospital post.
Your educational development is assessed by your Educational Supervisor in the Educational Supervisors Report (ESR). Your CSR froms part of the evidence which is assessed in ESR so you will need to make sure your CSR is completed before your ESR.
Purpose of the Clinical Supervisors Review (CSR)
The Clinical Supervisors Report (CSR) is a short, structured report from your clinical supervisor in each hospital post. Recorded in your Trainee ePortfolio, CSRs form part of the Workplace Based Assessment (WPBA) component of our MRCGP membership exam.
How the Clinical Supervisors Report (CSR) works
Developed through consultation with primary and secondary care educators and supervisors, the CSR is designed to be easy to focussed and easy to complete. It can be used by clinical supervisors in primary or secondary care, but it’s primarily intended to gather information during hospital posts.
Assessment of competence through the CSR
The CSR brings together the 12 competences from the WPBA framework in four ‘clusters’: relationship, diagnostics, management and professionalism.
Concentrating on areas that can be reasonably assessed in secondary care, it provides material for to the ‘naturally occurring evidence’ in ‘forms contributed’ within your Trainee ePortfolio.
Competence rating scale
The rating scale assumes that all trainees ‘need further development’ (NFD) and encourages assessors to make comparisons with doctors at the same stage of training. This scale proved successful in trials because it is one that secondary care doctors are used to working with. If a trainee is performing above expectations, this can be recorded and reflected in the text boxes.
Completing a CSR
The CSR will be completed by the named clinical supervisor (usually a consultant in the specialty), after they’ve reviewed all the evidence relating to your post (including the mandatory WPBA tools, ePortfolio log entries and feedback from staff and colleagues).
All sections of the CSR form need to have text entered. In particular, the ’Comments/concerns’ box is a very important way of giving feedback to the educational supervisor and should be used for each area of competence.
The final feedback box is used by the clinical supervisor to provide further information, or recommendations to help either you or your educational supervisor.
Communication between the clinical supervisor and educational supervisor
The CSR is one of several sources of evidence used by the educational supervisor to reach a judgement about your progress. But while it’s designed to provide useful structured information, it’s no substitute for dialogue between the clinical and educational supervisors.
Ideally, the supervisors will confer at the beginning of your attachment to plan educational objectives for the following six months and identify specific learning opportunities within the post. They should also make contact before completion of the CSR – or prior to completion if they have any concerns.