RCGP announces rise in trainees’ membership fees and cuts to entrance exam costs

The Royal College of General Practitioners has increased the amount that trainees pay for membership but has cut the costs of its membership examination.

The changes will mean that trainees starting in August 2015 will pay £595.43 more for associates in training (AiT) membership. The college said this increase in cost would be “largely offset” by a reduction of £409 in the combined fees for the clinical skills assessment and the applied knowledge test. It currently costs trainees £1780 (£1602 for AiT members) each time they sit the clinical skills assessment.1

The college said that moving some of the cost of the examination fee to the AiT membership “is expected to significantly reduce the financial burden for future trainees who need to sit the exam more than once and who will therefore pay less overall.”

Donna Tooth, chair of the BMA’s GP trainees subcommittee, said that the BMA was extremely concerned about the changes. “They represent another unjustifiable fee rise that trainees will have to bear, and there is questionable evidence to suggest they are necessary,” she said. “The BMA has repeatedly attempted to get an explanation from the RCGP about how these changes are calculated and for evidence to demonstrate that the current fees only cover administrative costs, but we are yet to receive a satisfactory reply.”

Tooth said the BMA was concerned that the changes would set a precedent for ongoing rises to fees for future GPs. “We will be asking the RCGP to explain this decision and ensure that the fee process is more transparent, so that trainees know what their fees are being spent on,” she said

Helen Stokes-Lampard, honorary treasurer of the RCGP, said that the new system would benefit part time trainees and trainees who had to retake any part of their membership exam. But trainees who passed their exams first time were likely to end up paying more than they had done under the previous system, she added.

“The perfect trainee will pay around £180 more than they would have previously, over three years,” she said. “It will affect the ones who sail through, but up till now those people have been subsidised by those who failed.”

Stokes-Lampard said that the changes to the exam and membership fees were made after consultation with trainees and that the RCGP would not make any additional money from the membership fee increase.