Designing revalidation processes using lay expertise: Nottingham University Hospitals MARAG
How are lay people involved in local revalidation processes?
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUHT) has had a lay member on its Medical Appraisal and Revalidation Advisory Group (MARAG) since it began in 2012.
MARAG maintains and develops the trust’s medical appraisal and revalidation policies and processes. It is directly accountable to the responsible officer.
Using a job description (see sample below) and person specification, the lay member role was advertised in the trust’s ebulletin, which reaches over 7,000 member of the public.
The role of the lay member is not to represent any particular group of patients. It is a three-year fixed term position, and is unpaid except for expenses. They have two main aspects to their role:
- membership of MARAG: making sure that NUHT medical appraisal and revalidation processes are informed by the perspectives of patients and public, and are focused on improving the quality and safety of care and increasing public trust
- membership of interview panels appointing new specialty lead appraisers when needed.
Alongside the lay representative, MARAG’s membership includes specialty lead appraisers, clinical academics, heads of service, SAS doctors and a representative of the Local Negotiating Committee.
What are the benefits?
Making it work at your organisation
- Use a formal recruitment process to get a lay member who brings expertise and insight, and can represent the perspective of patients.
- Protect confidential discussions by holding meetings in two parts. At MARAG, the first part of the meeting involves the lay member and considers policy and evaluation, quality assurance of appraisal summaries, and reviews policy compliance. Confidential matters involving individual doctors are discussed in the second part, which is not attended by the lay member.
