What happens after the assessment?

You won't get any feedback on your performance at any point during the assessment.

After the assessment, the team leader drafts a report, based on the comments recorded by the assessment team and results of any tests of competence. The draft report, including the findings and recommendations, is discussed and agreed by the whole team.

Due to the volume of data gathered, it will take the team at least several weeks to produce their report. They'll be able to give you an indication of how long it will take at the end of your assessment.

The assessment team will submit their report to us. We'll share it with you and your legal representative as soon as we can. We will also disclose the report to your employer.

Following the assessment, the case will be passed to a decision maker to consider whether your undertakings should be revised or removed. They will consider all of the information that has been gathered since you agreed your undertakings, not just the assessors’ report.

If the report identifies new or on going concerns, the decision maker may vary your existing restrictions or open a new investigation.

The assessors’ report

The report should describe your professional performance in a fair and balanced way. Although the assessment is tailored to the known concerns, the report will include all of the assessors' findings.

It will be divided into four sections:

1. Formal opinion

The assessment team are asked to answer the following questions:

• Has the standard of the practitioner's professional performance been deficient?
• Is the practitioner fit to practise either generally, on a limited basis, or not at all?   

2. Summary and Recommendations

The recommendations will depend on the answer to the second question above.

If you are found fit to practise generally:

The assessment team will recommend that any restrictions on your practice are lifted.

If you are found fit to practise on a limited basis:

The assessment team will make recommendations. These are likely to be variations to your undertakings. They may be relaxed or they may be tightened in order to protect patient safety or bring your performance up to the expected standard. The recommendations will be written with reference our undertakings bank and glossary of terms. 

3. Conduct of the assessment

This section contains background information on your practice, the assessment team and the conduct of the assessment.

4. Findings

This section describes your performance under the assessment categories with reference to the professional standards described in Good medical practice. Some categories may be excluded because they are not applicable to the work you do or the assessment team could not gather sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion in that category.

Under each category the assessment team will: 

• explain the evidence available to them

• describe the aspects of your performance which they have found to be acceptable, and any that were unacceptable, and cite examples

• give an overall assessment of whether your performance in the category is unacceptable, acceptable or a cause for concern. This may not correlate with the number of items of evidence graded as acceptable or unacceptable because the overall conclusion takes account of patterns of performance and the importance of each item of evidence. Significant weight, for example, will be apportioned to evidence of performance that may put patients at risk.

The findings section will also contain the results of any tests of competence you sat.

There are also appendices, which will include help with interpreting tests of competence results and a printout of all of the comments and judgements recorded by the assessors throughout the assessment.