Swansea Bay is amongst the biggest and longest established schemes in Wales. We have over 50 doctors training for general practice at any one time. The scheme prides itself on our success rate in the MRCGP examination with the last few years producing excellent results. (a 92% pass rate overall)

At present there are 18 registrar places available annually, in fourteen excellent Swansea training practices. The GP registrar year is always placed at the end of Specialty Training in Swansea and all GP Registrars will enter practice in August only. We feel this offers you the greatest opportunity to pass the MRCGP examination. Prior to their registrar year, scheme participants are offered ST1/2 rotations in designated scheme hospital posts,which are based in 3 city hospitals, Singleton, Morriston and Cefn Coed:

The hospital component of an individuals scheme from 2008 will be 18 months with 18 months in a General Practice setting. In ST2 one of your 6months will be in Practice which will be allocated to you by the Programme Directors. For the final 12 months in GP there is a preference selection system. There is new guidance regarding your certificate of training from the Postgraduate Medical Education & Training Board (PMETB), pertaining to this issue which must be consulted, this can be found here.

In constructing individual schemes, the directors do their best, given prevailing availability, to accommodate successful applicants with regard to their ST1/2 post preferences. During the hospital based component of training we operate a series of study days (2 days in each 6 month post) which comprise our ST1/2 curriculum. The Curriculum days are structured around the New MRCGP Curriculum which has recently been released and which is the basis for the new MRCGP exam. During ST1 and 2 years each trainee has an Educational Supervisor who is a GP trainer to supervise their hospital component of General Practice Training.

In addition, we expect every ST1/2 to spend a further day during each post in a local training practice. These measures help to ensure that ST1/2s feel very much part of the scheme before entering the intensive GP registrar year.

For your final year of General practice you can choose from one of our 14 excellent training practices for your final GP registrar year. This process takes place three months before entering the general practice phase of training where GP ST2s are invited to visit local training practices that they might apply to. An application and matching procedure then takes place that gives the training practice a say in the matching outcome if more than one ST2 declares it in a list of three ordered preferences. This system works very well and facilitates a degree of informed choice for all concerned.