DRUGS AND ALCOHOL CORE COMPETENCIES (DACC) PROJECT

Equipping all doctors to care for people who use drugs or alcohol

Aim: To develop consensus across the medical Colleges and Faculties on the core competencies that all doctors requireto adequately identify and manage patients who use drugs or alcohol.

Objectives

  • Consolidate a network of participants, across all Colleges, who are well placed to contribute to discussion and to embed the emerging consensus in their respective Colleges’ curricula.
  • To engage a wider stakeholder group in the development and dissemination of the project.
  • Produce a document identifying existing relevant competencies in the Colleges’ curricula and training programmes, and summarising recent reports on drugs and alcohol as they pertain to medical competencies.
  • Identify similar work already done on core competencies across medical specialties relating to other conditions (eg diabetes, depression).
  • Develop a consensus document on the core competencies that all doctors require to adequately identify and manage patients who use drugs or alcohol, using a modified Delphi process.
  • Communicate the consensus on core competencies effectively to all Colleges and stakeholders, and monitor whether they are embedded in individual College curricula and the work of the GMC post graduate training board.
  • Use the launch of the core competencies document as an opportunity for publicising key messages from the Colleges on alcohol and drugs health harm.
  • Consider scope for development of cross College training material based on core competencies, building on networks established during the project and any other further steps.

Funding: Provided by Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, matched by Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Project Participation and Management

Full list of stakeholders attached

Steering Group

  • Oversees project
  • Responsible to Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for delivery.

Dr Owen Bowden Jones, Chair, Faculty of Addictions, RoyalCollege of Psychiatrists

Dr Julia Sinclair, Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, - Project Lead

Dr Nick Sheron, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Hepatology

Alex Crowe, RoyalCollege of Psychiatrists – Project Management

Working Group

  • Comprises Medical Colleges/Faculties, GMC, Patient and Carer Representatives and a few others.
  • Participate in a “Delphi process” to develop a consensus on core competencies.
  • Collective ownership and endorsement of the final report

Wider Stakeholders

  • Invited to provide views to feed into Delphi process and on draft report.
  • Invited to Launch of the final document

Timescale

23 March 2011 / First Steering Group Meeting
end April / Steering Group agree working group and wider stakeholder list
Presidential letter to all Colleges
2 June / Skeleton draft of Background paper to Steering Group.
Invitation letters to Working Group members confirming Delphi meeting dates & remit.
15 June / Steering Group meeting
24 June / Background paper to working group and wider stakeholders
30 June / First quarterly progress report to AMRC
31 July / Deadline for comments/input on background paper
9 Sept / Updated background paper to Working Group
28 September (tbc) / First Working Group meeting
30 September / Second quarterly progress report to AMRC
Oct/Nov / Delphi iterations
November / Second Working Group meeting
early Dec / (Final Delphi meeting if necessary)
16 December / Draft final report to Delphi participants
Third quarterly progress report to AMRC
early Feb 2012 / Colleges sign off final report
end March / Launch.
Final quarterly progress report to AMRC
June 2012 / Check implementation
end 2012 / Report to AMRC on implementation.

Stakeholders

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Working Group (draft list)

RoyalCollege of Anaesthetists
Faculty of Dental Surgery
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Faculty of Occupational Medicine
Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine
Faculty of Public Health
College of Emergency Medicine
Royal College of General Practitioners
Royal College of Ophthalmologists
Royal College of Pathologists
Royal College of Psychiatrists
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
Royal College of Physicians of London
Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Glasgow
Royal College Physicians of Ireland
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland
Royal College of Radiologists
General Medical Council
British Medical Association
Project on Substance Misuse in the Undergraduate Medical Curriculum
Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
Trainee Doctors’ Group
Patient & Carer reps
Representatives of the Deaneries
Department of Health

Wider Stakholders (draft list)

Academy of Medical Sciences
Action on Addiction
Alcohol and Health Research Trust
Alcohol Concern
Alcohol Education and Research Council
Alcohol Health Alliance
Association for the Study of Medical Education
Association of Higher Education in Alcohol and Drugs (AHEAD)
British Liver Trust
Drugscope
DVLA
European Association for the Treatment of Addiction (eATA)
Home Office
Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs
Institute of Alcohol Studies
Medical Council on Alcohol
NAT (HIV lobby group)
National Clinical Assessment Service
National Organisation on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome - UK
National Skills Consortium
NHS Confederation
Scottish Intercollegiate Group on Alcohol/SHAAP
Scottish Training on Drugs and Alcohol (STRADA)
Sick Doctors Trust
Skills for Health
Society for the Study of Addiction
The Hepatitis C Trust

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