More time to complete National Training Surveys

More time has been set aside for trainees and trainers to complete the National Training Surveys to enable a greater number of responses and provide detailed evaluation of training posts across the UK.

An important emphasis for the surveys is to gain a clear overview of the experiences of trainees and their training and the quality of training from trainers. The GMC wants to hear from trainers who have a critical role in making sure Foundation Programme and specialty, including GP trainees, experience the best possible training.  The surveys are also an opportunity for trainees to contribute their voice to the regulation of medical education and training to ensure it meets the standards required.

The survey for trainees is in its 4th and the trainer survey is in its 3rd year.  Both will close on 30 June 2010. (In the Northern Ireland deanery, where the surveys began earlier, the new deadline is 31 May 2010.)

Survey reports will be available to deaneries online from August 2010 and the National Key Findings report will be published in the winter.

Mr John Smith, Chair of the Surveys Working Group which oversees the development of the National Training Surveys said:

“Survey responses help us to regulate the quality of training; ensuring patients receive care that is delivered safely and to the standards they deserve. Ultimately we want UK trainees to complete their training as world-class doctors; making sure they are well prepared for the needs of healthcare and best-placed for the posts they have earned.”

For more information about the surveys visit www.gmc-uk.org/education/postgraduate/surveys.asp

Notes to Editors:

For further information please contact the Media Relations Office on 020 7189 5454, out of hours 020 7189 5444, email press@gmc-uk.org, website www.gmc-uk.org.

The General Medical Council registers and licenses doctors to practise medicine in the UK. Our purpose is summed up in the phrase: Regulating doctors, Ensuring Good Medical Practice.

The law gives us four main functions:

• keeping up-to-date registers of qualified doctors
• fostering good medical practice
• promoting high standards of medical education and training
• dealing firmly and fairly with doctors whose fitness to practise is in doubt

Merger of PMETB with GMC

The functions of the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) transferred to the GMC on 1 April 2010, creating a simpler and clearer framework for the regulation of medical education and training.  All stages of medical education and training now fall under the GMC’s remit. For more information please visit www.gmc-uk.org.

Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA)

From April 2011, the adjudication of fitness to practise cases involving doctors will transfer from the GMC to a new body called the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA). OHPA is being established under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. It is being created to ensure clear separation between the investigation of fitness to practise cases and the process of determining whether a professional’s fitness to practise is impaired.

To begin with, the new body will be responsible for making decisions on fitness to practise cases brought forward by the GMC and, in time, the General Optical Council. Over time, other regulators of healthcare professionals may transfer their adjudication functions to OHPA. For more information about OHPA, please visit www.ohpa.org.uk

The GMC will remain the regulator for doctors, continuing to set the standards for professional practice and receiving and investigating allegations about their fitness to practise.