Workplace assessment for licensing in general practice.

With the redesign of general practice training implicit in the Department of Health's programme of reform, Modernising Medical Careers, there is the opportunity to bring summative assessment and the MRCGP examination together into a unified assessment framework for licensing. It is likely that assessment in the workplace will play a central role in such a process. Workplace assessment is of high validity and has the potential to reconnect teaching and testing in general practice. Five principles to underpin the design of a workplace assessment are proposed, namely that it should be: competency-based, developmental, evidential, locally assessed, and triangulated. Successful implementation of workplace assessment will not only serve to reduce the current testing burden on trainees, but will also harness the involvement of medical teachers. In doing so, general practice has the opportunity to create a powerful tool for professional development.