The system for registration of doctors on the Medical Register
to practice medicine in the UK is changing with the mechanism of
periodic revalidation. The purpose of this is to provide an open
model of regulation lead by the profession in partnership with the
public to ensure that doctors are up to date and fit to practice.
Revalidation will look at your day to day practice or activities
reflected in the principals set out in the General Medical
Council’s document “Good Medical Practice”. The Royal College of
General Practitioners (RCGP) with the General Practitioners
Committee of the British Medical Association have a produced a
document “Good Medical Practice for General Practitioners” which
sets out the standard for revalidation for GP’s (link to pdf file
Good Medical Practice for General Practitioners). The GMC’s “Good
Medical Practice” document describes seven broad headings:
1. Good Medical Care
2. Maintaining Good Medical Practice
3. Relationships with patients
4. Working with colleagues
5. Teaching and training, appraising and assessing
6. Probity
7. Health and the performance of other doctors
The Good Medical Practice for GP’s explores in more depth the
meaning of these for general practitioners in the UK context and
under each heading describes the standards for “an excellent GP”
and on the other hand those described as “an unacceptable
GP”.
A number of Members and Fellows of the RCGP are working
overseas for a variety of reasons, for instance, as part of the
their own continuing professional development, as a career break,
or for family reasons, but will intend to return to the UK to
continue to practice and it is very important that they are
preparing themselves for this compulsory revalidation. The full
details of this are available through the General Medical Council
and to ensure that you have up to date information always check the
websites
http://www.revalidation.uk.info/
and
http://www.gmc-uk.org/ for the latest
versions of the booklets and relevant addition material including
”A licence to practice and revalidation”.
The important aspect to bear in mind is that it is your
responsibility, not that of your employer, client, associated
organisation or anyone else to prepare you for revalidation. The
GMC will not prescribe nor legally can do so exactly what
information you need to collect and retain. For this reason you
will need to consider which of the two routes to revalidation would
be most appropriate for you to pursue.
The
Appraisal Route
which is appropriate for you if you are working in a managed
environment which has a system of annual appraisal and you are able
to support this with evidence through documentation.
Or
The
Independent
Route which may be appropriate for many of our members who are
working in countries, cultures and health systems that do not have
managed organisations with annual appraisal systems, which will be
often the case where general practice or family medicine is at an
earlier stage of development than in the UK. By this independent
route you will need to demonstrate that you are adopting the
standards of Good Medical Practice and show that you are
undertaking continuing medical education or professional
development within your particular environment.