Update
Focus: GMC in 2010
A look at what your regulator will be up to in this forthcoming year
Last year, in between answering 230,000 calls and granting 11,000 initial registrations, the GMC made changes that affected all new doctors. Will they turn the heat up in 2010? Some of the highlights set tto rank highly on the agenda include:
- PMETB and GMC to merge in April
From April, the regulation of all stages of medical education will be the responsibility of a single organisation.
Last year, following a recommendation from Sir John Tooke’s inquiry into “Modernising Medical Careers”, the government announced that the Postgraduate and Medical Education Training Board (PMETB) and the GMC would merge.
The GMC will offer equivalent certification routes, such as the CCT, CEST and the CEGPR. These certificates will be processed at the GMC offices at Euston Road. The GMC has agreed to fix the 2010/2011 fees as per the 2009/2010 rates.
Also, the PMETB and the GMC will deliver the annual postgraduate trainee and trainer surveys from April. For the first time, these national surveys will run concurrently.
- Rollout of Tomorrow’s Doctors
Over the next year, the GMC will be liaising closely with medical schools and stakeholders to ensure that the new standards that medical students will have to meet, are being rolled out correctly.
Significant changes include more practical training, by way of student assistantships – where students undertake new placements shortly before entering their F1 year.
A key focus for the GMC is furthering a major programme of work that will ensure that revalidation can be introduced from 2011. A major consultation on revalidation is expected to be launched in this year.
- Launch of new guidance on end-of-life care
Last summer, the GMC consulted on draft guidance on end-of-life treatment and how to foster good practice in decision-making. It is aimed at doctors, but it may also help patients and other care staff understand what is expected from doctors involved in caring for dying patients. Due to be launched in the spring.
- Preparing for transfer of fitness to practise cases
From April 2011, the adjudication of fitness to practise cases involving doctors will transfer from the GMC to a new body called the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA). The GMC will be working with OHPA this year to prepare for the transfer.
The GMC will remain the regulator for doctors, continuing to set the standards for professional practice and receiving and investigating allegations about their fitness to practise.
- Develop “Good Medical Practice in Action”
Launched last year, the interactive website has proved very popular with new doctors. Each month, 1,500 web users visit the site. It is made up of a series of tutorials exploring common real-life medical and ethical dilemmas, which explain how doctors should tackle them using GMC guidance.
The scenarios deal with more than one dilemma at a time, to reflect the challenges that doctors face. Log on to www.gmc-uk.org/gmpinaction to find out what you should do.
News in brief
Proposed cuts to training threaten patient care
The BMA’s Junior Doctor Committee (JDC) says that Department of Health plans to cut training funding could cut millions of pounds from junior doctor training. The review of the Multi Professional Education and Training Levy is currently underway. It will decide the future of how NHS funding for undergraduate education and postgraduate training of all healthcare workers is distributed.
Dr Shree Datta, Chair of the JDC, said: “Fully trained doctors don’t grow on trees and the Department of Health needs to be very careful that they don’t end up making the training of doctors so unattractive, or the funding system so unstable, that hospitals no longer want to do it. Training is seen as a soft target, but it is crucial to maintaining high standards of patient care.”
Attempts to widen access to medicine failing
Despite increased government investment of £392 million, attempts to widen access to the medical profession are failing. According to the BMA’s Equality and Diversity in UK Medical Schools report, which examines successful applications to UK medical schools between 2003 and 2008, the number of students from low income backgrounds has risen by only 1.7%.
Furthermore, only one in seven successful applicants are from the lowest economic group, despite those groups making up just under half the UK population.
Professor Bhupinder Sandu, Chair of the BMA’s Equal Opportunity Committee, blames a combination of complex problems. Professor Sandhu said: “There are clear underlying issues within education at school level, not just in the poor academic performance amongst low income students, but also in low aspirations, with many seemingly feeling a career in medicine is simply unattainable.”