The Bradford VTS Learning Hub
Like Facebook, but ten times better — and without your auntie commenting on your ARCP.
GP training can feel lonely. You sit with a question at 10pm — about the AKT, a tricky CBD, a learning log, a patient who rattled you — and there is nobody to ask. The Learning Hub fixes that. It connects GP trainees, GP trainers and TPDs from across the UK and beyond, in one calm, searchable, brilliantly organised place. Come for the answers. Stay for the people.
Already joined? Straight back in.
One click and you are back where you left off.
Register and join — under two minutes
Find your part of the world, then pick the role that fits. If you wear more than one hat, choose your highest role — TPDs are automatically added to the trainer channels too.
United Kingdom
Ireland
Europe
Rest of the World
💡 A quick word before you click
Membership is deliberately kept affordable — free for trainees, and just a nominal £30 for the whole year for educators. As Ram puts it, “it doesn't cost an arm and a leg” — and it helps with the running of the platform and the accompanying website. The Bradford VTS website itself remains completely free and always will. The Hub is the living, breathing, human bit that sits alongside it.
Have a look around
Pick a topic. One screen at a time, no scrolling marathon.
📱 Set Up The App — Five Minutes, Once
Do this bit now and you will actually use the Hub. Leave it for later and, let's be honest, later never comes.
ℹ️ Two things that catch everybody out
- The app is called GoKollab, not “Bradford VTS”. Searching for Bradford VTS in the app store finds nothing.
- You must sign up on the website first. The app is a door into your account — it cannot create one.
Sign up on the web first
Use the register links above. Note the email address you used — you need exactly the same one in the app.
Download GoKollab
Search GoKollab in your app store. Check the developer says LEADCONNECTOR LLC (or LeadConnector on Android).
Sign in with the same email
Same credentials as the website. If you are sent a one-time code, check your inbox — and your junk folder, which is where NHS mail likes to hide things.
Open the Bradford VTS Learning Hub
Select the community, and you will see the Spaces your role gives you. Have a scroll. Read a few threads. Nobody is watching.
Turn on notifications for two or three channels
Follow the ones that match where you are right now — AKT if you are revising, ARCP if it is that time of year — and mute the rest. Change it any time.
🔧 If something goes wrong
- “No communities found” — you are signed in with a different email from the one you registered with.
- Can't find the app — you are searching “Bradford VTS”. Search GoKollab.
- No sign-in email — check spam, and consider a personal address rather than NHS mail.
- Still stuck — log in on a desktop browser at login.bradfordvts.co.uk first, then retry the app.
⚡ In A Nutshell
If you read only one panel on this page, read this one.
The Learning Hub in six lines
- What it is: a private online community for GP trainees, trainers and TPDs. It looks like social media — but it behaves itself.
- What's inside: themed channels for AKT, SCA, CBDs, COTs, ePortfolio, WPBA, learning logs, QI projects, ARCP, HDR ideas and more.
- Why it's different: posts are categorised and searchable forever. Nothing vanishes after a week.
- Who sees what: trainee, trainer and TPD spaces are kept separate. You speak freely among your own.
- Where it lives: any desktop browser and a proper mobile app (GoKollab, iOS and Android).
- Why bother: because the brains of many will always beat the brains of one.
Searchable
Every AKT post ever written, in seconds.
Organised
Sorted into channels, not thrown at you.
Separate
Work stays work. Your social life stays yours.
Connected
Chat, message and video call colleagues UK-wide.
💚 Why This Exists
Bradford VTS has been a leading GP training website for over twenty years. Over 3,000 downloadable educational files. Mountains of “evergreen” content — communication skills, ethics, teaching theory — the sort of material that stays true year after year.
But here is the honest limitation: it is a static website. It hands you information and then steps back. You cannot ask it a question. It cannot tell you that four other trainees had exactly the same worry last Tuesday.
Learning does not really work like that. We learn best when we talk, compare notes, hear how somebody else handled it, and realise we were not the only one struggling. So the Hub was built as the dynamic half of Bradford VTS — where the information becomes a conversation.
GP Trainer & Programme Director, Bradford
🎁 What You Actually Get
Three roles. Three private spaces. Each stuffed with the channels that matter to that role.
🩺 GP Trainees
ST1 · ST2 · ST3 · and beyond- SCA channels — answers from people who have just sat it.
- AKT help — study plans, resource reviews, morale support at 11pm.
- ePortfolio & WPBA — logs, CBDs, COTs, CEPS, MSF, PSQ, demystified.
- Educational Supervision — what your ES actually wants.
- Expecting & new parents — training and nappies is a genre of its own.
- First5 / Newly Qualified — stay connected after CCT.
🎓 GP Trainers
New, experienced and reapproving- Educator channels — ask what you would rather not ask in a room full of colleagues.
- COTs, CBDs, ePortfolio — how to do them well and word them fairly.
- Educational theory — tutorial ideas that actually land.
- QI projects — supervising them without losing the will to live.
- Trainer reapproval — what's needed and how others evidenced it.
- Nationwide peer network — you are not the only trainer with this problem.
🧭 TPDs & Deans
Programme leadership- Everything trainers get — you're added to those channels too.
- HDR ideas — steal shamelessly from other schemes. That's the point.
- ARCP channel — panels, evidence, borderline decisions.
- Trainer workshops — session plans that worked elsewhere.
- Scheme-level problem solving — recruitment, induction, trainees in difficulty.
- Talk to TPDs nationally — genuinely rare, quietly one of the most useful.
🎯 The bit people underestimate
Everyone joins for the exam channels. What keeps them is the regional and GEO Communities spaces — where you find people training in your patch, or people who grew up in the same country as you. For International Medical Graduates especially, that second one has been the difference between “I feel isolated here” and “oh good, there are forty of us.”
⚔️ Why This Beats A Facebook Group
Facebook groups are free, and free is lovely. But there are things they simply cannot do — and all of them matter in GP training.
| What matters | Facebook Group | Learning Hub |
|---|---|---|
| Work vs social life | Hopelessly blurred. Your CBD question sits next to a wedding photo. | Completely separate. Log in, learn, log out. |
| How long a post lasts | A day. A week if it's lucky. Then buried forever. | Permanently. A tip from two years ago is one click away. |
| Searching | Painful — so the same questions get asked again and again. | Proper keyword search across every post, ever. |
| Organisation | One feed, in whatever order the algorithm fancies. | Themed channels. Want AKT? Click AKT. |
| Who's in the room | Anyone. Bots, spam, drive-by opinions. | Verified trainees, trainers and TPDs. |
| Tone | Drifts easily into moaning and naming and shaming. | Kept positive and constructive. That's a rule, not a hope. |
💚 The short version
Your work life stops eating your social life. Good posts don't die after a week. You can actually find things. And everything is filed properly, rather than tipped over you in a heap.
🗂 Spaces, Channels & Who Sees What
Two words to learn. A Space is a big area for a group of people. A Channel is a topic inside it. That's the whole system.
| Space | Who can see it | Example channels inside |
|---|---|---|
| 🩺 GP Trainee Space | Trainees only | AKT · SCA · ePortfolio · WPBA · Learning Logs · Ed Supervision · Expecting & New Parents · Newly Qualified GP |
| 🎓 GP Trainer Space | Trainers and TPDs | COTs · CBDs · ePortfolio · QI Projects · Ed Supervision · Educational Theory · Reapproval |
| 🧭 TPD Space | TPDs only | HDR Ideas · ARCP · Trainer Workshops · Scheme Leadership |
| 📍 Training Region Spaces | Everyone — please join in | Region-specific chat across all three roles |
| 🌍 GEO Communities | Everyone — please join in | Grouped by where you were born and raised, so nobody trains feeling alone |
ℹ️ In plain English
Trainees never see the trainer discussions. Trainers and TPDs never see the trainee ones. That separation is deliberate and it is what makes people honest. The Training Region and GEO Communities spaces are shared on purpose — that's where the whole GP training family actually meets.
👀 What's Happening In There Right Now
Not to twist your arm. But these are the sorts of conversations going on today.
🩺 In the trainee channels
- Someone who sat the SCA last month describing exactly how the timing felt
- An ST2 sharing the AKT study plan that finally worked after a false start
- A thread on learning logs that became the clearest explanation of reflection anyone has written
- Three people quietly admitting they found the ePortfolio baffling too
🎓 In the educator channels
- A trainer asking how others word a difficult CBD without crushing confidence
- A tutorial format being passed around because it worked brilliantly
- Reapproval evidence being compared, so nobody reinvents the wheel
- TPDs swapping HDR session ideas that saved somebody a weekend of planning
😬 The honest bit
Every one of those conversations happened whether you were there or not. The difference is whether you get to read them — and whether the person with your exact problem gets to read yours. Even lurking counts.
⚠️ House Rules — Please Read Before You Post
Short, non-negotiable, and genuinely important. Breaking these is a professional matter, not just a community one.
🚨 Never post anything that could identify a patient or a colleague
A person can be identified without their name or address. A rare condition, an unusual job, a distinctive combination of details — any of these can be enough. For example: “my patient, the only person in Bradford with X syndrome…” That single sentence has just identified someone.
- No patient names, initials, dates of birth, addresses or NHS numbers
- No unique or unusual characteristics that could pin a person down
- No naming of specific trainees, trainers, TPDs or practices
- No naming and shaming. Ever.
- You are personally responsible for what you write.
💚 And the spirit of the place
This is a positive forum, not a place to moan and groan. If you are stuck, ask. If you can help, help. If someone gets something wrong, be gentle — they may be having a much harder week than you know.
Be positive. Be kind. Be compassionate. Be forgiving. Be respectful.
🧭 If you're an IMG and new to UK norms
UK confidentiality expectations are strict and they apply online exactly as they do in the consulting room. The safest habit is simple: change or remove every detail that isn't essential to the learning point. If you find yourself thinking “but the detail makes the story better” — that's precisely the detail to take out. The GMC's guidance on confidentiality is the reference point, and it applies to professional forums as much as anywhere else.
✅ The Bits To Remember
Last look before you go.
Six reasons to click that register button
- You are not the only one struggling with that thing. You just can't see the others yet.
- Nothing gets lost. Every post is searchable forever, filed under a proper theme.
- Work stays separate from life. One place for GP training, and it isn't your Facebook feed.
- Your role is protected. Trainees, trainers and TPDs each get their own private space.
- It's in your pocket. The app means you can dip in between patients.
- The brains of many beat the brains of one. Every single time.
The community only works if people show up. So — come and be one of the people who showed up.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Tap a question to open it.
Bradford VTS has been a leading GP training website for over twenty years, with more than 3,000 downloadable educational files. But it is static. It gives you information; it cannot give you a conversation.
The Hub is the dynamic other half. It's an online community where trainees, trainers and TPDs across the country connect, ask, share and learn from one another. Posts are organised around themes — AKT, SCA, CBDs, learning logs, projects and so on — so knowledge builds up over time rather than evaporating.
The short version: static site for the information, Hub for the humans.
Yes — completely, and it always will be. Every page, every download, no login. The Hub is a separate membership community that sits alongside it, and it is deliberately kept affordable.
Always pick your highest role. TPDs are automatically added to the trainer channels as well, so you lose nothing and gain the TPD-only spaces.
No. The GP Trainee Space and its channels are visible to trainees only. The GP Trainer Space is visible to trainers and TPDs. The TPD Space is TPDs only.
That said — the Training Region and GEO Communities spaces are shared by everyone, so use your judgement there, and remember the house rules apply everywhere.
This is exactly what the GEO Communities space was built for. It groups members by where they were born and raised, so you can find people who have travelled the same road, adjusted to the same NHS quirks, and can tell you which bits of UK general practice genuinely are as odd as they seem.
You can also search for members by shared interests and hobbies. Isolation is one of the biggest problems in GP training, and it is one of the easiest to fix.
Yes. The Simulated Consultation Assessment (SCA) has been the RCGP's clinical exam since November 2023, replacing the temporary pandemic-era Recorded Consultation Assessment (RCA) and, before that, the CSA. The channels reflect the current exam.
For the detailed exam guidance itself, see the Bradford VTS SCA pages and the RCGP MRCGP exam pages. Use the Hub for the human side: nerves, timing, what it felt like, what people wish they'd done differently.
Read as much as you like. Lurking is completely fine and most people start there. But do try one post in your first fortnight — the moment you get a helpful reply, the whole thing clicks.
You get access to the First5 / Newly Qualified GP channel. The first year after CCT is genuinely destabilising — no trainer, no debrief, full responsibility — and having your cohort still reachable makes a real difference.
Yes. The Bradford VTS Learning Hub runs in the GoKollab app, free on both iOS and Android. Search your app store for “GoKollab” (the developer is listed as LEADCONNECTOR LLC), install it, and sign in with the same email address you used to join the Hub. Full step-by-step instructions are in the Set Up The App tab above.
You can discuss learning points from cases — that's a large part of the value. What you cannot do is post anything that could identify the patient, directly or indirectly.
Also worth saying plainly: the Hub is a place for education and peer support, not a substitute for clinical advice on a live patient. If you need a decision made now, use your usual clinical supervision routes.
Built and looked after by Dr Ramesh Mehay, GP Trainer & Programme Director, Bradford VTS. Exam information on this page reflects current RCGP arrangements — the SCA has been the clinical component of MRCGP since November 2023.