Annex A > Chapter 4 - National Accountabilities and Roles > Continuing professional development (CPD) > Revalidation
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Revalidation
316 CPD may be related to revalidation. The aim of revalidation is the maintenance of doctors' fitness to practise. The mechanism envisaged is continued entitlement to registration. The Inquiry has received evidence giving some indication of the standards sought to be upheld and the procedures involved:
`Hitherto, doctors have remained registered without any continuing assessment of their fitness to practise. In February 1999, the Council [GMC] decided that all doctors must be able to demonstrate on a regular basis that they are keeping themselves up to date and remain fit to practise in their chosen field.
`Revalidation of fitness to practise will be linked with registration.' [384]
317 Sir Donald told the Inquiry:
`... we have taken the decision to change the basis of registration so that doctors in future have to be able to demonstrate on an ongoing basis their fitness to practise ...' [385]
`For all established doctors, the principles of `Good Medical Practice' - interpreted for each specialty by the Colleges - will provide the template against which doctors' continuing registration will be regularly revalidated in future.' [386]
`The GMC's fitness to practise procedures, especially the performance procedures, will be used to underpin revalidation when it is introduced. They will be the instrument through which the GMC will assess the performance of doctors who fail to meet the criteria for revalidation, and through which it will decide whether to act on a doctor's registration.' [387]
319 The revalidation is `revalidation of registration'. [388] It could apply both to basic and other registrations, such as higher level nursing registrations. [389]
320 The principle of revalidation (or re-accreditation) is widely supported by general practitioners:
`In 1992 the General Practitioners' Committee of the BMA ran a very large opinion survey ... to which 25, 000 GPs replied. ... One of the questions was: did doctors believe that re-accreditation, regular re-accreditation, would improve standards of care. Two-thirds said yes.' [390]
Mechanics of revalidation
321 The mechanics of revalidation are still being discussed. The GMC's view was given to the Inquiry by Sir Donald:
`... many of these problems that have arisen in the United States and elsewhere arise because of a reliance or seeking to rely on the assessment itself, and, you know, the questions arise as to what the appeal would be against, et cetera. The difference with the proposals that we have in mind - this is already adopted as policy - is that against the screen, effectively, which is what revalidation will be, if questions about performance, fitness to practise arise, then they will be investigated further and in all the appropriate detail within the GMC's fitness to practise procedures, almost certainly the performance framework. In that, it will bring the questions into an established statutory framework in which patients and doctors have their respective rights and all is settled and all agreed. So there is no need at that earlier stage to be concerned, be revalidated or not. It is not at that point that the decision would be taken. It would be taken by the GMC within that statutory framework. That is settled.' [391]
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Footnotes
[384] WIT 0062 0006 - 0007 Mr Scott
[385] T48 p.78 Sir Donald Irvine
[386] WIT 0051 0010 Sir Donald Irvine
[387] WIT 0051 0013 Sir Donald Irvine
[388] WIT 0051 0014 Sir Donald Irvine
[389] WIT 0052 0326 Ms Lavin; `Review of the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1997 - Government Response to the Recommendations' , p. 10, HSC 1999/030