Editor’s choice

Revalidation reports

Authors: Edward Davies 

Publication date:  28 Oct 2009

Writing in BMJ Careers last July, General Medical Council (GMC) chairman Professor Peter Rubin described revalidation as the “biggest change to medical regulation in 150 years” (BMJ Careers 2009, http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20000241). He accepted that for many doctors it was one of their greatest professional concerns, and he assured the profession that there would not be a “big bang” introduction of the process but a steady feed of tests and pilots leading to introduction in 2011.

Last week the first of these pilots, carried out among three groups of doctors, reported back to the GMC (newshound, page xx).

Each pilot served a slightly different purpose. Buckinghamshire primary care trust looked at developing appraisal, whereas NHS Employers looked at how primary care trusts should work with disparate groups of locums.

But most interesting is the pilot in Wales, which looked at how revalidation could fit in with existing systems. It’s this issue that will concern and affect the largest number of doctors.

And the results are encouraging. “The Welsh project in particular underlines that revalidation can be straightforward for doctors and their healthcare organisations provided that clinical governance and appraisal are well embedded,” said Keith Pearson, chair of the UK Revalidation Programme Board.

This begs the question of how well revalidation will work where clinical governance and appraisal are not well embedded.

And what if systems such as these are not functioning well in your area? That is precisely why the introduction of revalidation is so important.

Edward Davies editor, BMJ Careers

 careerfocus@bmj.com