Health committee calls for written evidence for inquiry into workforce planning in Scotland/s National Health Service
GMC Scotland is the Scottish policy office of the General Medical Council and has been established as part of the comprehensive reform of the General Medical Council, shaping a GMC that is fit for purpose in today’s conditions. The General Medical Council functions to ensure the application of commonly held standards across the whole of the UK and is committed to contributing actively to the delivery of excellence in medical practice in Scotland, working with Scottish health organisations, patients and public.
The General Medical Council (GMC) supports the Health Committee’s Inquiry into Workforce Planning, with particular reference to the identification of barriers to training and education and examining what is being done to identify longer term influences on health service provision and demand, and how this relates to workforce development. .
The GMC has a responsibility to set standards in undergraduate medical education and the following period of training as a Pre-Registration House Officer (PRHO) prior to the granting of full registration with us. The GMC also has responsibility for maintaining such standards. (Medical Act 1983).
We are keen that the standards that we set do not create any unnecessary barriers to training and education and we regularly review our standards with this in mind.
In undergraduate education our standards are set out in terms of outcomes. Our position is that ‘ As long as they meet a university's regulations, anyone can graduate provided that they meet all the outcomes and curriculum requirements in these recommendations. Our view is that students with a wide range of disabilities or health conditions can achieve the set standards of knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour. Each case is different and has to be viewed on its merits. The safety of the public must always take priority.’ (See paragraph 76, Tomorrows Doctors 2003, GMC).
We are currently piloting a new quality assurance process which looks at good practice and aims to share examples of good practice amongst all the medical schools. One of the Medical Schools that is helping us to pilot this process is Aberdeen Medical School. We have already been able to identify examples of good practice relating to the scheme of widening access to medicine which underpins their admissions process. We look forward to quality assuring other schools in Scotland with a view to identifying and sharing further examples of good practice which help to remove seen and unseen barriers to training. We would be pleased to share our findings with the Inquiry.
We are in the process of revising our standards for PRHO training moving towards an outcomes based approach which builds upon the undergraduate standards. To ensure that we are not creating unnecessary barriers to training, we are consulting widely with those with expertise in equality and diversity issues.
We have an overarching statutory duty to promote high standards in and to co-ordinate all stages of medical education. We do this in part in our publication of Continuing Professional Development. We are also committed to promoting equality and valuing diversity, including compliance with equal opportunities legislation and good practice.
As well as reviewing our current publications we are also looking to the future. Partly in order to ensure that our policies will not create barriers to prospective medical students in the future, we are currently scoping a project to examine what patients will need from doctors in the future. This covers questions such as:
- How might the boundaries of the profession of medicine change as roles are increasingly played by other health care practitioners?
- How are expectations of patients and the public changing, for example in relation to choice, autonomy, effectiveness and safety?
- How will new technology such as that developing in molecular genetics affect the learning needs of doctors?
We are also in the process of commissioning some academic research to support our forthcoming PRHO Guidance to ensure that the outcomes that we have set are those that are required from doctors today.
We would be pleased to assist the inquiry in any way that we can and we look forward to seeing its conclusions, to ensure that our policies and procedures are fully informed.
For further information please contact
Jane Todd
Head of Scottish Affairs
GMC Scotland
Napier House
35 Thistle Street
Edinburgh
EH2 1DY
Tel: 0131 240 6410
Fax: 0131 220 0120