In the first year three evaluations were undertaken but within 3 years the number of evaluations had doubled so it was obvious that a larger panel was needed to avoid overloading busy GDPs and the number of members increased to over 30.
This figure has remained around this level to maintain a high level of personal contact between the co-ordinators and members.
Currently, of the Panel of 35, nine of the panel are female and the average time since graduation is 29 years (range 11 to 44 years). The panel has members at present practising in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and also one evaluator in Nuremburg, Germany. Additionally, 49% of the evaluators hold post-graduate degrees or diplomas.
An innovation in the new millenium was to try and arrange meetings for all the members to get together to hear a top-class speaker, exchange views on the direction and running of the PREP panel and, perhaps most importantly, meet socially. This has resulted so far in nine extremely successful meetings. At the first of these, none of the PREP Panel members knew each other – but all were known by the Panel Co-ordinators. A psychologist would have had a field day!