Keeping pace with good medical practice
We are consulting on a new, shorter draft of our core guidance Good Medical Practice.
Although many aspects of good professional behaviour are unchanging, medical practice and society’s expectations of doctors are constantly evolving. We have used surveys, opinion polls and discussions with interested parties to find out what people thought needed to change.
You can read and comment on the draft guidance until 10 February 2012.
We’ve included some new duties
The new draft includes explicit duties about continuity of care and making sure patients have enough to eat and drink and are kept clean and comfortable. These are matters that should concern doctors and reflect their responsibility for overall care and treatment of their patients.
There is also guidance on encouraging patients, including those with long-term conditions, to stay in or return to employment or other ‘purposeful activity’.
The new draft also asks you to seek a mentor when you take on a new role and, in turn, to mentor less experienced colleagues. And there’s a word of caution that comments to friends or family on social media sites can end up being seen by colleagues or patients.
We have taken out some of the detail
To keep the core guidance brief and to the point, we have cut back some of the more detailed information. Instead, we will produce supplementary guidance on:
- ending relationships with patients
- delegation and referral
- financial and commercial interests
- working with colleagues
- using social media.
We have restructured it into four sections
We have also restructured the guidance into four sections. This matches the sections in the framework for appraisal that we published earlier in the year, The Good Medical Practice framework for appraisal for revalidation.
What do you think?
We want your feedback.
If you only have a few minutes to spare and do not have time to read the full guidance (238Kb pdf), there is a short consultation with just 19 questions.
Otherwise, there is a longer consultation which covers the new guidance in more detail. You will need to have read the draft guidance to find this useful.
The consultation is open until 10 February 2012. We will publish the new guidance in autumn 2012.