Information for Doctors in Training about the Local

Revalidation Process

1. What is Revalidation?

Medical revalidation is the process by which the General Medical Council (GMC) confirms the continuation of a doctor’s licence to practise in the UK. The aim is to support doctors in their professional development, helping to improve quality, patient safety and public confidence in the profession. It ensures that doctors are up to date and maintaining their fitness to practise. Every fully registered doctor needs to revalidate every 5 years, and this includes doctors in foundation year two and specialty training, up to and including their grace period.

Revalidation is based on the evidence you are providing every year at your ARCP/RITA process. Revalidation encompasses the full scope of a doctor’s work, for trained as well as training doctors, which includes any other medical work you are carrying out, including locum work, voluntary work as a doctor etc.

For an Explanation of what Fitness to Practise actually means, see here

2. When you will revalidate

The point at which you revalidate will depend on how long your training lasts:

  • If your training lasts longer than five years, your first revalidation will be five years after you gained full registration with a licence to practise, and you will revalidate again at the point you become eligible for CCT.
  • If your training lasts less than five years, your first revalidation will be within 60 days either way of the point you become eligible for CCT.
  • Doctors who exit their training programme prior to obtaining CCT will retain their allocated revalidation date, and their next responsible officer will need to make a recommendation by that date.

For the first 5 year cycle, trainees will ONLY revalidate at the time of CCT. Only when trainees start after 31st March 2013 will you also need to revalidate at 5 years after full registration. You can view your revalidation date by logging into yourGMC Onlineaccount.

Four months before your recommendation is due from the RO, the GMC will send you a formal revalidation notice. Your RO can make their recommendation to the GMC at any time during the four month formal notice period.

When a trainee’s revalidation date is based on their CCT date, the GMC will set the revalidation date 60 days after the CCT date because CCT dates can move.

Your first revalidation
Expected CCT between 3 December 2012 and 31 March 2013 / Between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2016
Expected CCT between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2018 / At point of eligibility for CCT
Expected CCT after 31 March 2018, and those trainees who do not currently have an expected CCT date / Between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2018. (Your responsible officer can bring forward your revalidation to align with your expected CCT date where necessary.)

For queries about CCT dates moving and what will happen to the revalidation date, please see the GMC guidance here.

3. The Evidence you will need to supply

As the revalidation recommendation is based on your Annual Assessment process, this means you need to be engaged in and meeting the assessments and curriculum requirements of your training programme. You will already be in regular discussion about your progress and outstanding learning needs with your supervisors, including reflection on any adverse events and complaints.

The documentation you will need to provide to the ARCP panel will encompass all of the evidence you need for revalidation. This will include:

  • Form R - This now includes a self-declaration covering your extended scope of practice and asks about health, probity, complaints, significant events, serious untoward incidents, complaints and compliments received. Instructions on completion of the form R can be found on the Revalidation pages of the Oxford PGMDE website.
  • Wider scope of practice form – this needs to be completed if you have listed any other medical work on your Form R apart from locum in your own specialty in your own trust. This needs to be signed by your Educational Supervisor so that they are aware that you are doing other work and can check that you are providing evidence about that work.
  • Educational Supervisor annual training report (either on your e-portfolio or in a paper portfolio). If you are using a paper portfolio or your college does not have the revalidation questions on the e-portfolio, you also need to ask your supervisors to complete the form in Appendix 1.
  • Your full portfolio (this will be electronic for ARCP, but does require you to bring along the full paper portfolio for the year, for RITAs).

Where your training programme does not require you to routinely collect items of supporting information, you are not expected to collect this, for example patient feedback.

The ARCP/RITA panel will request that all evidence is provided at least 2 weeks before the panel takes place. If you do not provide the evidence in time, you will be given an outcome 5 at ARCP, requiring that you provide the evidence promptly in order to complete the ARCP process.

4. How the process works

As a doctor in foundation or specialty training, you are working within a highly governed system and your practice is already subject to regular review. This means that revalidation will be straightforward for you and the process will be similar to that for other licensed doctors.

At the ARCP/RITA, as well as the evidence you supply (see 3 above) the Trust / Area Team in which you are working will also be asked to supply any information they have about significant events, complaints etc that you have been involved in, particularly ones which remain unresolved. This is done in a “Collective Exit Report” which

  • Details your Trust employment
  • Identifies any complaints or serious untoward incidents in which you have been involved, and any trust investigations arising from these.

The trust completes an “Exception Exit” report if a concern is noted in the collective report and a copy of the report must be shared with the trainee.

All this evidence is then examined by the panel to confirm that there are no concerns likely to affect your revalidation.

Your Designated Body (DB) is Health Education Thames Valley.

Your Responsible Officer is the Postgraduate Dean, Dr Michael Bannon.

The Deanwill make a revalidation recommendation to the GMC during a period of four months around your revalidation date. He will base his recommendation on your participation in the ARCP or RITA process. He is asked to confirm that there are no unaddressed concerns about your fitness to practise, and this information will come either from employers (the trust) or the ARCP/RITA process.

The Deanwill then make one of three possible recommendations to the GMC for the purposes of revalidation:

•Positive

•Defer

•Non engagement

See section 6 below for more detail about these.

5. Information for other types of trainee or training -

5.1 Academic Trainees

Trainees in such programmes have both an Academic and an Educational supervisor, and are assessed each year as to their progress both academically and clinically, preferably through a joint academic/clinical ARCP/RITA process. Revalidation will therefore encompass both the academic work, and the clinical work of the trainee, as well as any wider scope of medical work that they are undertaking.

Such trainees will therefore be required to produce evidence of their progress at ARCP and also address and reflect on any critical incidents, complaints and other concerns in both their clinical and their academic training.

You will need to complete both the Enhanced Form R as well as the Wider Scope of Practice form.

Your academic supervisor is required to complete the Report on Academic Progress form as agreed by the OUCAGS ARCP guidelines, and this needs to be agreed and signed by you for submission to the annual panel. Your Educational Supervisor is required to complete your e-portfolio or other evidence of the clinical work you have undertaken and to confirm that you are progressing through the relevant training programme. Both supervisors will be expected to discuss with you any adverse events, complaints etc as with other trainees and to confirm that you have reflected on any incidents.

5.2 Trainees who are Out of Programme

Trainees who are Out of Programme are generally still doing work that requires them to have a licence to practise on the GMC’s medical register. Therefore they still need to provide evidence each year that they are working towards revalidation. The only exception is OOPC, where doctors may not be carrying out any medical work at all.

For all types of OOP work, please see the information on the Revalidation pages of the Oxford PGMDEwebsite which provides more information about the supporting evidence you need to supply.

In order to remain on the training programme, you need to hold a valid Licence to Practise, so do not give this up even if you are on a prolonged career break.

5.3 Maternity Leave

Your RO will recommend deferral of your revalidation to the GMC if you are on maternity leave at the time of your ARCP. This will only be until you are back at work and again able to provide the appropriate evidence to support your ARCP.

Do not give up your Licence to Practise, as this is required for you to remain on the training programme.

6. What if you don’t agree with the revalidation recommendation?

The RO only makes a recommendation to the GMC. The GMC decides about any doctor’s revalidation. It is important to remember that revalidation is separate to fitness to practise and any concerns about FtP would already have been referred to the GMC.

It is important to remember that deferral is a neutral process. This will generally be recommended because there is an investigation of an incident or complaint in progress, which has not yet been completed. Rarely it may be used if a trainee is on a career break or long-term sick leave. In either case, it merely provides the trainee with some extra time to be supported by the training programme in collecting the right evidence.

Non-engagement is a very unlikely recommendation and would only be made by the Dean if a trainee has not engaged at all in the training and revalidation process. This would also result in an adverse ARCP/RITA outcome.

There is no appeal process, but you will be involved in the process at every step; this will not be done TO you, but WITH you. Any appeal against an ARCP outcome can be taken ahead through the usual processes.

7. After you complete your training

When you complete your training, yourdesignated bodywillchange to the organisation in which you spend most or all of your practice. You will need to tell the GMC when your designated body changes by usingGMC Online.

After this, you will need to have a regular appraisal that is based on the GMC’s core guidance for the profession,Good medical practice, and collect supporting information to show how you are meeting professional standards.

Click to read more information abouthow licensed doctors will revalidate.

Appendix 1 Form for completion by Educational and Clinical Supervisors where an electronic declaration does not exist e.g. for RITAs or for Schools which do not have a revalidation-ready electronic trainer’s report.

Details of concerns/investigations:
Are you aware if this trainee has been involved in any conduct, capability or Serious Untoward Incidents/ Significant Event Investigation or named in any complaint?
/ Yes/ No
If so are you aware if it has/ these have been resolved satisfactorily with no unresolved concerns about a trainee’s fitness to practice or conduct?
/ Yes/No
Comments, if any:
Name of ES / CS
Signature of ES/CS
Date
Name of Trainee:
Signature of Trainee
Date:

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