3rd February 2023
Last week all the professional bodies with a Roadmap met in London with the team from the Centre of Advancing Practice. The aim was to discuss any recurrent problems FCPs were facing, and determine as part of a quality review, what might need changing, removing, adding or simplifying. This work continues and we want to assure all our members that we absolutely have a voice at this table and welcome any additional comments to feed into this work. Contact us at
primarycare@collegeofparamedics.co.uk with any suggestions and feedback.
Much of January has been spent ensuring that the e-portfolio to support paramedics in primary care is the best it can be and that it will help those working on their First Contact Practitioner capabilities. The e-portfolio project is being led by Ben Baker who is our Workforce Reform Officer in the Clinical Development directorate, and he has been working tirelessly to ensure this will be a useful tool for all paramedics working in primary care roles in all nations.
Dear Colleagues,
The College of Paramedics is delighted to announce that we have developed a paramedic specific e-portfolio for you to use as an individually focused resource. After a number of our focus groups identified the need for such an opportunity and following a review of the available e-portfolio possibilities, we choose to collaborate with Fourteen Fish. The portfolio enables you to collate all your post-graduate learning conveniently into one single database, which you can use to assist in demonstrating your progression along your chosen career pathway.
Initially it has been designed as a stepped approach for primary care paramedics including the clinical competencies required for the first contact practitioner (FCP) roadmap and the additional requirements for advanced practitioners or consultant level practice. As Fourteen Fish is the e-portfolio that most GPs use, this subsequently makes the supervisory requirements of the FCP roadmap and ACP pathways easy to navigate for supervising GPs, which was also confirmed during the pilot/test phase. The format of the portfolio allows all paramedics working towards these goals to map their own individual journey, whether via a formal or a portfolio route, to achieve the same goal.
The portfolio rolls over each year so you can continue to evidence your learning and demonstrate how you are continually upholding your job specific clinical competencies. You can also change your job title and the portfolio updates your recommended achievable goals as identified for the next stage of your chosen pathway. The e-portfolio also helps you to identify areas that you may not have done enough learning, so provides ideas for your future development.
The next phase of the e-portfolio is the addition of the common capabilities for paramedics working in other non-traditional clinical environments, firstly for paramedics working in urgent care settings such as walk in centres or out of hours. We also have plans in place to add the capabilities for other clinical areas, particularly where frameworks already exist. Our aspiration is that paramedics can map their entire career trajectory after completion of newly qualified paramedic all the way to consultant practitioner, or wherever else your path may take you, on this simple to use and paramedic specific e-portfolio.
Members of the College will need to create a ‘Fourteen Fish’ account to access the e-portfolio
Join: College of Paramedics - FourteenFish
I hope you find it useful, do get in touch with me at
ben.baker@collegeofparamedics.co.uk if you have any questions,
Ben Baker, Workforce Reform Support Officer