Over the last decade there has been a great deal of debate within the NHS and elsewhere about the need to improve the system of professional regulation of healthcare professionals and in particular that of doctors. Following recommendations about the regulation of doctors in the reports of the public inquiries into Bristol Royal Infirmary and Harold Shipman, the previous Government established reviews which led to the publication of the White Paper Trust, Assurance and Safety in February 2007.
One of the issues that the White Paper covered was revalidation, a broad term used to refer to the policy of proactively ensuring that practitioners who are registered to practise are still safe and competent to do so, as opposed to investigating competence only when complaints are made or concerns are raised. Revalidation includes both relicensing (professionals demonstrating that they remain fit to practise) and recertification (specialist doctors demonstrating that they remain competent in their specialism).
Since the White Paper there has been extensive further consideration of how revalidation would work in practice. Pilots have been taking place in London and West Yorkshire, and the General Medical Council undertook a consultation exercise between March and June this year, the results of which were published by the GMC on 18 October.
Given the importance of the maintenance of public confidence in doctors’ fitness to practice, the Health Committee has decided to undertake an inquiry into the proposals for revalidation. There will be a short programme of oral evidence – the GMC, representatives of the medical profession, and the Department of Health – but we also invite written submissions from interested organisations and individuals.
In particular, the Committee would like to receive evidence on:
• The way in which the GMC proposes to establish revalidation
• The responses to the consultation and the GMC and UK health departments’ statement of intent issued on 18 October
• The experiences of those who are involved in the pilots in London and West Yorkshire
• The Secretary of State’s decision in June to extend the piloting of revalidation by a year, meaning that it will not now be fully implemented until 2012 at the earliest
The Committee invites short written submissions from interested organisations and individuals. The deadline for submitting written evidence is noon on Tuesday 9 November 2010.
Guidance on submitting written evidence It assists the Committee if those submitting written evidence adhere to the following guidelines:
Each submission should:
• state clearly who the submission is from, ie whether from yourself in a personal capacity (eg Submission from Miss Dee Dee Lee) or sent on behalf of an organisation (eg Submission from Insert Name Ltd)
• be 3,000 words in length;
• as far as possible comprise a single document attachment to the email; • begin with a short summary in bullet point form;
• have numbered paragraphs; and
• be in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible (Reports are published in black and white).
A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to healthcommem@parliament.uk and have the ‘Name of the inquiry’ in the Subject line.
Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication.
It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence would send their contact details separately in a covering email in a block of text laid out vertically (not horizontally). See example below:
eg: Miss Dee Dee Lee
Westminster House
7 Millbank
London
SW00 0XX
Tel: 0000 000 0000 / Mob: 00000 000000
deedeelee1005@xxxxxxx.uk
You should also be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Though there is a strong preference for emailed submissions, those without access to a computer should send a hard copy to:
Committee Assistant
Health Committee
Committee Office
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London
SW1P 3JA
• A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: Commons: Guide for Witnesses
Please also note that:
• Committees make public much of the evidence they receive during inquiries. If you do not wish your submission to be published, you must clearly say so. If you wish to include private or confidential information in your submission to the Committee, please contact the Clerk of the Committee to discuss this.
• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed submission, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
• Evidence submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
• Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
• Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
For up-to-date information on progress of the inquiry visit: http://www.parliament.uk/healthcom