I am very pleased to report another successful APMR cycle.

Satisfactory returns were received from 16 universities, including direct entry courses.  

There are excellent, accredited programmes and programme teams across the UK.

There has been a slight increase in numbers of students enrolled and also in the numbers obtaining awards when compared with 2016 to 17 as seen in the table below. The increased numbers being in MScs and there are slight drops in the numbers of PgC and PgDs.  This probably reflects demands of the service, increased numbers of part-time students and changes in the career structure.

Numbers overall are still lower than in 2015 to 16, which was an exceptionally high year, but there are still a good number of students.  It will be interesting to see how numbers compare going forwards.

There is still a good range of modules and the students continue to come from a variety of backgrounds.  We still note difficulties of increasing workload and clinical pressures, which has an effect on clinical placements for students and can affect the retention of students on programmes.

Thanks to Committee members Crispian and Lisa for helping with the analysis, and to all the programme leads for completing the forms.

The APMR form was modified previously and seems good for the programme leads to complete, but those of us doing the analysis have had some difficulties (probably due to local IT issues!) A new online data collection method for 2018 – 19 has been sourced (SmartSurvey), so it will be good to see how we all get on with that.

Dr Valda Gazzard

APMR lead