The Viva - Pt 1

After finally completing my QP journey I thought I would write a couple of posts to describe the final few steps leading up to the viva.  This first post will concentrate on completion & submission of your forms and the final preparation leading up to the big day.  The subsequent post will review the big day itself.

I've previously posted about the application form and by now this should all be complete and checked by your sponsor to ensure all aspects of the study guide have been met.  Your sponsor will also need to complete the sponsor form before you can submit.  This is an extensive form that will require your sponsor to document your suitability for QP eligibility.  Completion of this form is not a 5 minute job so don't leave this to the last minute!  The form was updated last year and requires significant input from your sponsor on your progress with detailed examples of how you have met certain aspects of the guide.

Someone once said 'the waiting is the hardest thing' and once you have submitted all your forms there is not much more you can do but wait.  The first contact from your professional body's QP officer will be confirmation of receipt of your application and fee.  Assuming there is no administrative errors with your application form the next contact from the QP officer will likely be a month away whilst your application form is reviewed by 2 QP assessors.  Occasionally the QP officer will contact you on behalf of the assessors for further information or clarification of specific areas of your application.  Once the assessors are satisfied with your application the QP officer will contact you to arrange a date for your viva.  This date maybe anywhere from a few weeks away to over 6 months away - it all depends on the numbers of trainees and cancellations.  Following a verbal confirmation of the viva date you will be sent details by post which you will need to confirm in writing that you are going to attend.

My Experience

My application forms were submitted early December 2013.  Within a week my QP officer emailed me to request clarification regarding my sponsor's details.  The next correspondence was a call from my QP officer in mid January 2014.  This was to invite me to an assessment interview.  At this point I was informed of a cancellation and a vacant slot for the first week of March.   The next available dates were not until May/June so I decided to accept the offer of the earlier viva.  I received confirmation of the date, time & location in the post a few days later.  It was somewhat of a relief to finally have a date to work towards.

Final preparation


During the weeks leading up to my viva I continued to study but the focus changed from knowledge gathering to polishing my strategy for dealing with scenarios and answers to questions that were likely to come up.  I worked closely with my sponsor at this point to test run specific answers to questions such as supply chain, legal/routine duties, tech transfer, water systems, cleaning validation & method validation.  I also revisited the processes for my products to ensure I knew all the relevant critical control points.  This also enabled me to start predicting scenarios relating to my processes and how I would tackle them if they arose during the viva.  With only a week or so remaining I started to reduce my studying time as I was worried about burning out from all the work I had been putting in over the previous few months.  I was happy that my knowledge and scenario strategy was ingrained within me so I saw no real need to try and cram more and more revision in.  This decision was somewhat made for me as I had to prepare and host an MHRA inspection the week before and attend my friend’s stag weekend in Wales the weekend before – probably not the best preparation but it was nice to be able to switch off for a few days.

And then my viva date was finally here……