Procedural skills in general practice vocational training - what should be taught?

Background: A list of procedural skills is an important component of a curriculum for general practice vocational training. This study aimed to establish an up-to-date list of core procedural skills that doctors undergoing general practice vocational training should be taught.

Method: A Delphi process was used to rank the importance of 185 general practice procedures. In 2009, 31 general practitioners took part in a two round Delphi process. A 4-point Likert scale was used to rate the importance of each procedure in vocational training.

Results: Mean rating scores for all the procedural items listed were determined, and a core list of 112 procedures was agreed on the basis of the relative importance of procedures determined by the Delphi participants.

Discussion: The ranked list of clinical procedures provides a resource to form the basis of a procedures training curriculum which can be adapted to different general practice training contexts.