Dr Louth is a consultant clinical oncologist at a teaching hospital.
Dr Louth last revalidated three years ago, and is retiring in just under two years’ time. He is an accomplished and respected practitioner with a good record and good relationships with his colleagues and patients. Dr Louth has acquired all six types of supporting information since his last revalidation date, and has now said openly that he no longer intends to engage with appraisal on the basis that he has already collected all the relevant information and, in any case, is retiring before his revalidation is expected.
You are unsure what the best course of action regarding Dr Louth is – whether you should expect to request a deferral when his recommendation is eventually due, or whether you need to inform the GMC that he is not engaging.
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Although Dr Louth might expect to meet the requirements for revalidation simply by collating his supporting information, and does not expect to revalidate his licence, he has overlooked the importance of engagement in the systems and processes that support revalidation. The purpose of revalidation is to bring all doctors’ practice into a governed environment where they reflect regularly on their practice with a trained appraiser. When you make the revalidation recommendation, you will be confirming in a statutory statement that Dr Louth has participated in annual appraisal that considers the whole of his practice and reflects the requirements of the Good Medical Practice Framework for appraisal and revalidation.
Dr Louth is also under a professional obligation, as set out in Good Medical Practice, to take part actively and constructively in appraisal and similar systems of support and development (see Good Medical Practice paragraphs 12-14). He may also change his mind about his retirement date.
If Dr Louth refuses to attend, and does not engage with the process, and if you have exhausted local procedures without success – ranging from initial conversations with him to determine the nature and any causes of his non-engagement, all the way up to formal local action if necessary – then you may need to consider a notification of non-engagement.
Although Dr Louth risks having his licence to practise removed by the GMC because he has not engaged, he will have the opportunity to begin engaging well before any decision is taken. But it remains for the RO to identify where a doctor is wilfully not engaging with appraisal, and to alert that doctor to the fact that he or she is failing to fulfil his or her professional obligations.
You can inform the GMC that a doctor is failing to engage at any time. You do not need to wait until you are due to make a recommendation about a doctor's revalidation.
Dr Louth may also have overlooked the fact that revalidation is not a point-in-time assessment, but requires him as a licensed doctor to engage continuously with local systems and processes. So even though he may not need to revalidate his licence in two years’ time, Dr Louth should also give attention to GMP and to our guidance on the currency and frequency of supporting information. His supporting information is not a data capture from a moment in time, but should remain current and updated throughout his revalidation cycle – so there is no sense in which he can really “finish” collecting this information as he seems to suggest.
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