"CAA's Cellma fails the medical" - Pilot Mag.
 

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"AMEs say CAA's Cellma fails the medical" - Pilot magazine June 2021

The recently introduced UK CAA Cellma 'medical data processing system' is now required to be used by AMEs in order to conduct and record air medical examinations, and by folks applying for their licence medicals etc.

A number of recent posts on PPRuNe suggest candidates for medicals are having difficulty accessing and using the new system. They are evidently not alone.

According to the Pilot article on page 6, the Association of Air Medical Examiners recently ran a survey of their members. Seventy responded. There was a 'high degree of dissatisfaction ...'

Criticisms included - '... will lead to medical certificates being issued incorrectly.' '... of difficulty using the system' '... the ineffectiveness of training.' and '... by design will cause mistakes' . Training was '... an inadequate 'gallop through' and 'serious contender for the worst day of my life ...' 71% of AMEs spent five hours or more trying to learn the system and only 11% felt competent completing a medical using it as their IT support.

Do they buy their IT from the Post Office ?

Answers from your friendly and long-suffering AME at your next Medical.
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I’ve just gone through the registration process, well ahead of my medical expiry in August. I ended up screaming in frustration at the screen.
The instructions were long, complex manuals. On the first attempt, taking some time to complete it while I downloaded the various documents, it timed out (the okay button to stay logged in didn’t work) so I had to start again. Attempts 2 and 3 failed to upload.
Attempts 4 and 5 were unsuccessful because I’d broken some rule or other with formatting (like putting a space in my phone number) which clears the downloaded documents and half the information. Attempt 6, while my wife restrained me from throwing the laptop out of the window, finally, after a looong slow upload, worked. It was very unfriendly and felt at least a decade out of date.

JC - If I read the CAA charge sheet correctly .........

You have to pay to the CAA £14 for the privilege of playing their registration computer game and/or £14 before each medical thereafter.

Your AME also has to pay the CAA £14 for the privilege of conducting your medical and uploading the data therefrom. Payable as a global sum every three months.

I also found the CAA's cunning plan for system failure - Look for 'downtime policy' here - https://www.caa.co.uk/Aeromedical-Ex...ecords-system/
Presumably during the 'down time' the previous paper system kicks in to keep you flying and safe from Ramp Checks. Interesting company engaged. I hope they've got plenty of anti-hacking tinfoil in store.

Ah what a joy to use Cellma. One wonders who they hired to digitalise the l paper form so we could type in answers instead of writing them. The online system lacks the user friendly interface that a simple a pen and paper offer.

Is anyone else finding that after filling out a Class 1/3 medical form online and paying the fee that the form appears to be blank. I have filled out twice now (fortunately only paid once) only to find my answers disappear into the grey internet and the form appears to have the text "no questions answered for this section" inserted to each section.

No delete button for attempted applications while trying to find the proper Class 1 Aeroplane form is apparent. Just says Class 1/3 when I finally found it and neither is it possible to delete automatically generated invoices or forms not used. Thank goodness the software people who came up with Cellma don't write the flight computer software

As a new user of the CAA Portal, I didn't have any problems with the registration process, but I received an email today saying "This email is to confirm that your details have now been verified, you can now apply for a service.", however, when I log in, the Medical section says "Medical - your application for this service is with the CAA" and I am unable to click on it... great system. I guess I just have to wait longer?!

CELLMA is still showing me an invoice for registration for a class 2, this is in spite of them already processing my case files for my class 1.

I clicked the class 2 link by mistake months ago and it generated an invoice despite me not filling or submitting the form. Apparently it's completely impossible for someone to manually override and delete it!

AirUK

Ah - I take it back. I’ve now received another email saying that access has now been granted… I guess there’s just a bit of lag in the system somewhere. I’ll let you know if I run into any further difficulty…