Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA)
Clinical activities that trainees can be trusted to perform with minimal or no supervision are labelled as Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs). The EPA concept allows to make competency-based decisions on the level of supervision required by trainees.
The introduction of this assessment tool addresses the need for more over-arching competency assessments to demonstrate that doctors in training are able to work as independent practitioners.
The EPA ‘Managing a Cataract Operating List’ tool demonstrates that senior trainees (typically OST5 and above) are able to undertake and have the skills needed to run a whole list of cataract operations.