How anonymous feedback can strengthen revalidation

I was delighted to be asked to be part of a meeting with Sir Keith Pearson the independent chair of the UK Revalidation Programme Board for the General Medical Council today. Sir Keith was kind enough to come and visit us at East Surrey Hospital to discuss revalidation of doctors and our experiences surrounding it. It was enlightening and a great honour for us to be involved.

Revalidation is the way that doctors retain their licence to practise by demonstrating that they deserve to have one. In short the doctor must meet the GMC guidance on Good Medical Practice which has very common sense standards that doctors must follow. You can see the guidance here:

http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/index.asp

In order to revalidate and keep their licence a doctor must have an annual appraisal and they must satisfy their appraiser that they have evidence to show that they meet the requirements.

Now this is where patient opinion comes in. Because a doctor must be able to show that patients are happy with the care that they deliver, and furthermore the doctor must be able to show that they treat patients respectfully, with care and involve them in decisions. This is a short sample of the expectations on doctors, but good doctors tend to do these things by default.

Patient opinion allows patients to post anonymous comments about care that we and others provide. Anonymity in my view encourages those patients who would otherwise worry about saying a negative thing to come forward and get it published. It is a way that we can start to trust that if there is anything bad to say, then it most likely has been said and therefore the collection of stories leads to stronger evidence and a more complete and trusting picture.

Collecting this information and using it as evidence of how we are doing can inform the revalidation process for doctors and allows us to show how we are thought of. Other websites like www.iwantgreatcare.org also focus the feedback on individual doctors rather than the service and both sources together lead to greater understanding. Of course it is extremely important to ensure that feedback is honest, given to be constructive and that we know what good looks like before we judge ourselves.

Robert Francis QC was clear about the dangers of ignoring feedback. To avoid similar problems the first thing we must do with our feedback is listen to it and then we must act upon it. Integrating such anonymous feedback into appraisal and revalidation can ensure that it is always seen and reflected upon by all doctors wishing to have a licence to practise. It will also ensure that a qualified appraiser can assist doctors in interpreting the results constructively and prevent unnecessary anxiety. Most doctors tend to feel they are not worthy of the job - a great strength as a doctor!

I am grateful for all of the feedback that we get and as I use the service more the benefits become much more evident.

Dr Ben Mearns

Clinical Lead for Acute & Elderly Medicine