Learning from revalidation pilots

An independent evaluation of work to test revalidation in England has revealed strong support from the organisations that took part. A large majority concluded that revalidation will improve patient safety, the quality of care and patients’ experience.

‘It is encouraging that NHS organisations recognise the potential benefit for patients – revalidation has to be seen as one element in making sure patients receive safe, high quality care,’ said Niall Dickson, the Chief Executive of the GMC.

‘Although we have streamlined the system since these pilots were devised, there are lesson to be learnt and further improvements we can make as we prepare for roll out.’

The pilots began in 2010 and focused on appraisal. They closed in March this year having delivered more than 3,000 medical appraisals across ten sites. While feedback was largely positive, the report published by the Department of Health (England) also identified a number of areas that needed further work.

Many of these have already been addressed. For example, one of the key issues for doctors taking part was how to relate their supporting information to our core guidance Good Medical Practice. Earlier this year, we published two documents that made it clear that supporting information does not need to be mapped directly to Good Medical Practice. (You can read the Good Medical Practice framework for appraisal and our guidance on supporting information on our revalidation web pages.)

Other areas where more work still needs to be done include the arrangements for locum doctors. Some of them found it difficult to gather the supporting information they needed for their appraisal. We will work with Responsible Officers, locum agencies and employers to make sure that this is resolved before revalidation begins next year. Further piloting now taking place will also help to address this.

The Department of Health is also developing clear and straightforward guidance for medical appraisals which will complement the advice in our Good Medical Practice framework and guidance on supporting information.

You can read the full report on the Department of Health’s Revalidation Support Team’s website.

You can find out more about how revalidation will work on our revalidation web pages.