The GMC has set out new proposals for how it will support doctors’ professional development, and what will be expected of doctors when it comes to accumulating CPD points.
Doctors already have a duty to keep their knowledge and skills up-to-date, and it’s an integral part of their professionalism. However, with the introduction of revalidation from late 2012, all doctors will for the first time have to show they are up-to-date with their practice on a regular basis.
The consultation launched asks for feedback on what doctors and employers should be doing on CPD and how the GMC can support doctors in keeping up-to-date, as CPD will play an important role in doctors’ revalidation.
An expert working group has developed new draft guidance following a major review of the GMC’s role in CPD. As part of the review, over 1,900 doctors gave their views on CPD. Seventy-eight per cent said they were able to access appropriate learning and 81% had an opportunity to discuss CPD and personal development as part of the appraisal process.
The new guidance emphasises the importance of all doctors having these opportunities and provides a framework of principles around which doctors should plan, undertake and evaluate their CPD activity.
In the consultation, doctors and others are being asked for their opinions on a range of issues arising from the GMC’s role in regulating CPD. These include the responsibilities of employers and contractors in supporting doctors’ CPD activity, whether the new guidance places appropriate emphasis on doctors’ CPD being informed by the needs of patients and the public and the link between CPD and revalidation.
The GMC was criticised by Lord Naren Patel last year, as part of his review, for offering out-of-date and woolly guidance on CPD.
He said then: “The GMC should update its 2004 CPD guidance and re-examine how the regulatory role in CPD should be exercised so as to support doctors in meeting the requirements of revalidation and providing high quality care for their patients, whilst preserving the value of CPD for individual professionals.”
At a time when training budgets and study leave are under pressure, many are concerned that doctors will not be able to meet the CPD demands of revalidation.
The GMC consultations says its ‘role in regulating doctors’ CPD is not to prescribe what CPD doctors must do or how they must do it, but to provide a framework of principles around which doctors should plan, undertake and evaluate their CPD activity’.
But for the framework of principles to have full effect ‘they must be embedded in the processes for appraisal and in the way appraisal is quality assured’, it says.
A recent review showed that nearly half of hospital doctors are still not being appraised properly.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the GMC, said: “Continuing professional development only works when the professional devises and feels ownership of what he or she undertakes. It cannot be about ticking boxes - if patients are to receive good care doctors must receive the right support - that means they are given the opportunities to maintain and develop their skills.
“We hope that these consultations will shape the best possible systems to support every doctor’s professional development.”
The GMC also released another consultation seeking views on the supporting regulations that will set out the legal powers, rights and responsibilities which underpin the revalidation process.
These draft regulations set out the powers the GMC will have for revalidation.
This consultation asks if the GMC has achieved the right balance in the draft regulations between the need for flexibility so that revalidation works for all types of doctors, and the need for certainty and transparency about how the process will work. The consultation includes questions about the GMC’s powers to vary a doctor’s revalidation date, the minimum notice period doctors are given that their revalidation is due and how the GMC might deal with the revalidation of doctors with no Responsible Officer.
The GMC is urging doctors to offer feedback.
The consultations close on 27 January 2012 and the guidance will be available in spring 2012.
Tags: CPD, Revalidation
Doctors should realise that if they do not achieve revalidation, they will not be able to practise - there has been enough warning over about 10 years! But Trust managers must also realise that if they do not allow doctors to attend activities for CPD, they will not get revalidated - so will not be employable!