The Final Assessment
For many students, formal assessment is always a cause of some level of stress. The Assistant Practitioner MUST bear in mind that they will not be eligible to be entered in for the final assessment until they have undertaken thorough practical training and a minimum of 500 logged hours of work/training and completed the competencies, x10 case studies, end of section activities and reflections within the training manual.
Please remember that supervising podiatrists should not enter assistants for the examination until he or she is confident that they are sufficiently prepared to have a good chance of passing the online assessment. On applying for the online exam, supervisors will have signed off the practical assessment within their own workplace and will be confident in the assistant's knowledge and skills.
Once the Supervising podiatrist feels that the Assistant is ready to go through the examination process we require them to complete the Assistant Practitioner exam application form and return it to:
Email: assistants@rcpod.org.uk
There are three parts to the final assessment as follows:
- A Portfolio/reflective log to be completed throughout the training period.
- Practical assessment, assessed by internal examiner (i.e. Practice Manager/supervising podiatrist)
- An online oral exam (VIVA)
The persons involved in the final assessment will be an external examiner appointed by the Royal College of Podiatry, and an internal examiner which will be the Practice Manager or supervising podiatrist.
When applying for your exam, it is advisable to give the Royal College as much notice as possible to ensure that we can accommodate your chosen dates. Our examiners are all clinicians/managers and need as much notice as possible to cover their own work.
The Portfolio
The portfolio will need to be completed by the trainee throughout their period of training. This will be submitted to the assigned Royal College's examiner and will be marked within within 6 weeks. On the portfolio reaching the required pass mark, the external examiner will make contact to arrange a suitable date for the online exam.
It is advisable to keep a copy of the portfolio (and a receipt of postage) in case it should go missing in the post.
The portfolio will be reviewed by the appointed examiner and for continuity marked on a scale of 1-5 (1 = excellent; 5 = poor) as with the oral and practical assessments.
The Practical Assessment
The internal examiner will be expected to review the care given to at least two patients by the assistant. The internal examiner will be observing the care process and awarding a pass/fail mark. The practical assessment will probably last about an hour for each candidate.
On submitting the exam paperwork to the Royal College, the internal examiner would have carried out the practical assessment and graded a pass mark.
The Online Oral Exam (VIVA)
With the Royal College of Podiatry's external examiner having passed the portfolio, contact will be made to arrange a suitable online pre-meeting (30 minutes) and susbsequent exam (2 hours). A 3-week period is recommended between the pre-meeting and exam to allow the candidate to consolidate their learning.
This part of the final assessment is used to test candidates’ understanding of why certain things are necessary at work, e.g. sterilising instruments, writing patient’s records. Questions for the exam may also be taken from the portfolio and submitted case studies.
Throughout the final assessment the internal examiner will be present to ensure all questions were covered during the training and to assist the external examiner in making a fair assessment.
After the online oral exam candidates will be given their results by the external examiner. However, these must be ratified by the Exam Board. Those who have been successful will be awarded a Certificate of Competence at Level 3 of the HEE Foot Health Standards 2021.
Exam Process
- Fill in the exam application form and submit via email to assistants@rcpod.org.uk.
- On receipt of the application, you will be linked with an external examiner who will then advise you on where to send portfolio. They may take up to 6 weeks for portfolio to be marked.
- The internal examiner will be sent the exam paperwork for the practical assessment, which should then be completed and returned to the external examiner prior to the online exam taking place.
- When the practical and the portfolio have been marked and passed, the external examiner will make contact to arrange a pre-meeting and the online oral exam. 24-hours prior to the online exam, you will receive a case study which you will be asked to prepare and deliver to the examiner on the day of your exam. You will also be asked questions about this case study. Other quesions in the online exam will be taken from the portfolio and these submitted case studies. The online exam may take up to two hours.
- You will be notified of the outcome of the exam immediately after a discussion between the internal and external examiners has taken place.
- On passing the exam, the exam paperwork will be sent to the Exam Board for ratification. There are two attempts for both the submitted portfolio and the online exam. Failure to pass both attempts will result in a fail. You can request a third attempt but this will be at an additional cost of £200.
- If you are unhappy with the outcome, you may email assistants@rcpod.org.uk for details on how to appeal your result via the Exam Board.