About BPS Assessment
BPS Assessment is the commercial assessment and eLearning arm of the British Pharmacological Society. Its mission is to drive improvement in medication safety through knowledge, assessment, and learning. This has propelled the launch of multiple training products in countries all over the globe. Since its launch in 2017, BPS Assessment has grown a strong international customer base and looks to continue expanding its products and services in line with market need.
Training products and services
BPS Assessment offers:
- Prescribing Skills Assessment - prescribing education and training that is tailor-made for a specific country or region's standards of practice.
- Simulators - bite-sized online assessments for those looking for training in specific areas of prescribing.
- CPT Elective course - fully comprehensive two-week course of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, including a pre-course knowledge check and a final formative assessment.
- eLearning - over 50 eLearning sessions, to develop students’ understanding of both clinical pharmacology and prescribing in practice.
- Prescribing Safety Assessment - the UK-recognised professional qualification developed to test the competencies defined by the General Medical Council (GMC) of the UK.
- MHRA - Yellow Card scheme Assessment - an assessment to help prescribers understand the regulatory role of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and its scheme for surveilling and reporting suspected safety concerns for post-market medicines.
Primarily focusing on prescribing education and training, BPS Assessment’s flagship product is the Prescribing Skills Assessment. This online assessment is derived from the UK Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) (see below), and includes over 1,000 questions, written by key subject matter experts, that span 8 core areas of prescribing skills, across a range of clinical settings.
The questions delivered in the Prescribing Skills Assessment are often localised to the standards of practice within a customer’s specific region and are currently offered to medical and pharmacy schools in Australasia, the Middle East, Europe, South East Asia, and North America.
BPS Assessment also offers bite-sized online assessments for those looking for training in specific areas of prescribing. The Simulators focus on areas of training which are known to be more complex or commonplace in clinical practice, such as deprescribing/polypharmacy, antimicrobial resistance, general practice, and hypertension. Each Simulator comprises of around 15 question items, all utilising the same style and format as the questions used in the Prescribing Skills Assessment.
Clinical pharmacology is also an area in which BPS Assessment offers training materials. The CPT Elective is a fully comprehensive two-week course of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, including a pre-course knowledge check and a final formative assessment.
Developed by experts and delivered through BPS Assessment’s online platform, this self-marking course covers key prescribing topics such as PKPD, medication errors, ADRs and monitoring drug therapies. It provides a concise, targeted learning experience and demonstrable improvement to students' understanding of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics.
There are over 50 eLearning sessions available from BPS Assessment, all written by experts in the field. They have been designed to develop students’ understanding of both clinical pharmacology and prescribing in practice, with quizzes and knowledge check questions throughout. The eLearning sessions support the Prescribing Skills Assessment, allowing students to revisit topics on demand and continually test their knowledge before sitting an assessment.
The Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) is a UK-recognised professional qualification that allows students to demonstrate their competencies in the safe and effective use of medicines. It includes 8 question item styles developed to test the competencies defined by the General Medical Council (GMC) of the UK.
The PSA is an equal partnership between the British Pharmacological Society and MSC Assessment.
Find out more on the Prescribing Safety Assessment website.
Preparation resources for sitting the Prescribing Safety Assessment
Many UK medical schools offer their own Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) preparation resources for doctors who will graduate outside the UK and who wish to join the UK Foundation Programme. You can access many of these resources on the UK Foundation Programme website.
A one-hour formative assessment to help prescribers understand the regulatory role of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and its Yellow Card scheme. You will learn the importance of post-market surveillance activities in the real world and the value of reporting suspected safety concerns.
More from BPS Assessment
Discover more BPS Assessment products and services by visiting the website.