Revalidation

Revalidation is an evaluation, demonstrating that doctors are up-to-date and fit to practice

Revalidation involves ensuring that the doctor is complying with the relevant professional standards and acting in accordance with the principles and values set out by the General Medical Council (GMC). Revalidation supports doctors to reflect on how they can improve and develop, gives their patients confidence that they are up to date and promotes improved quality of care through improved clinical governance.

Doctors must revalidate every five years in order to continue to practise medicine in the UK and requires doctors to complete annual whole scope of practice appraisals based on the GMC’s core guidance, Good Medical Practice.

Appraisal provides the essential information that is used by the Responsible Officer to recommend to the GMC that a doctor should have their licence to practise maintained.

This applies to all doctors with a licence to practise on the GMC register, including those in specialist training and those on the Specialist Register.

The GMC publishes it most recent guidance document on the requirements for revalidation and maintaining a licence to practise on its website and can be found on the GMC website.

 

Patient feedback

Please refer to our full statement on Patient Feedback for Revalidation. This statement has been reviewed by the GMC who have confirmed the content is in accordance with the latest guidance on supporting information for appraisal and revalidation.

FICM Guidance on Revalidation

  • Register on GMC online
  • Confirm your designated body through GMC online
  • Know your revalidation date via GMC online
  • Gather supporting information
  • Prepare for, participate in and sign off annual appraisal

Medical appraisal is a process of facilitated self-review supported by information gathered from the full scope of a doctor’s work as set out in the AoMRC 2022 Medical Appraisal Guide (MAG). It has four purposes:

  1. To enable doctors to enhance the quality of their professional work by planning their professional development.
  2. To enable doctors to consider their own needs in planning their professional development.
  3. To enable doctors to consider the priorities and requirements of the context(s) in which they are working.
  4. To enable doctors to demonstrate that they continue to meet the principles and values set out in Good Medical Practice, and therefore inform the responsible officer’s revalidation recommendation to the GMC.
  • Repeat the gathering of supporting information and appraisal annually
  • Receive your revalidation recommendation (depending on the outcome of the above steps)
  • Evidence of your CPD (annually)

CPD refers to any learning which helps you maintain and improve your performance. It covers the development of your knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours across all areas of your professional practice. It includes both formal and informal learning activities.

CPD may be:

  • Clinical: including any specialty or sub-specialty specific requirements.
  • Non-clinical: including training for educational supervision, training for management or academic training.

At each appraisal meeting, a description of CPD undertaken each year must be provided including:

  • Its relevance to your individual professional work
  • Its relevance to your PDP
  • Reflection and confirmation of good practice or new learning/practice change where appropriate.

Although collection of CPD credits is no longer mandated, the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine supports those doctors who prefer to continue recording them. While acquisition of CPD credits provides a useful steer for many doctors, the important focus needs to be on what has been learned and its effect on practice.

Your CPD activity should cover all aspects of your professional work and should cover your agreed PDP objectives. It is important to recognise there is much professional benefit associated with a wide variety of CPD including that outside your immediate area of practice. You should ensure a balance of different types of educational activity is maintained.

Documentation of CPD activity should include a reflection on the learning gained and the likely effect on your professional work. You should present a summary of your CPD activities through the year for your annual appraisal.
  • Colleague feedback (once per revalidation cycle)

The result of feedback from professional colleagues from the range of professional activities, using a validated multi source feedback (MSF) tool which meets criteria set by the GMC. The results should be reflected upon, and any further development needs should be addressed.

At least one colleague-based MSF should be undertaken in the revalidation cycle normally by the end of year two to allow follow up surveys if issues are identified and addressed. The selection of raters/assessors should represent the whole spectrum of people with whom you work. The results should be benchmarked where data are available and accessible against other doctors in the same specialty.
  • Patient feedback (once per revalidation cycle). FICM recognizes the challenges for intensivists to obtain individual doctor feedback based on their ICM practice. The Faculty support the use of appropriate team-based feedback in lieu of individual doctor feedback for ICM practice. This type of feedback should be supported by the responsible officer as it is within the latest GMC guidance. Detailed recommendations can be found here.
  • Quality improvement activities. This might include clinical audits, particularly completed audit cycles, reflection on cases and clinical outcomes or other activities related to your role as, for example, teacher, researcher, manager (see GMC supporting information guidelines for frequency).
  • Significant incidents that you have been involved with (as they occur).
  • Complaints or compliments that you may have been involved with (as they occur).
  • Statements on probity and health (annually)

An email helpdesk, which can provide generic advice and can get help with specific circumstances is available. Questions regarding the processes underpinning revalidation, or help with finding the relevant guidelines and regulations, will be answered by non-clinical staff within the department, and can normally be dealt with very rapidly.  Questions that require clinician input will be referred to a clinician adviser for a response – this may take a little longer. This service is offered in partnership with the RCoA and all enquiries should be sent to: revalidation@rcoa.ac.uk.

CPD Matrix

The CPD matrix is a framework against which CPD activities can be mapped. The aim is not to ‘complete’ the matrix in any given time period, but to provide a means of describing which areas of intensive care medicine match to the activities that have been undertaken. There is no obligation to use the matrix.

The CPD matrix has two levels. Level 1 allows doctors to map their intensive care activities to the GMC generic professional capabilities framework. Level 2 addresses the specialist practice of intensive care medicine by mirroring the higher level learning outcomes (HiLLOs) that form the basis of our training curriculum. The rationale being that the HiLLOs describe the scope of our specialty. Reference to HiLLOs also encourages a career-long spiral learning approach.

Level 1

1.1    Professional values and behaviours

1.2   Generic professional skills not specific to ICM

1.3   The wider health system and professional requirements

1.4   Health promotion and disease prevention

1.5   Leadership and teamworking

1.6   Patient safety and quality improvement

1.7   Safeguarding

1.8   Education and training

1.9   Research and scholarship

Level 2

2.1   Law and ethics as relevant to ICM

2.2   Resuscitation and stabilisation of the critically ill adult

2.3   Retrieval and transfer medicine

2.4   Investigation and monitoring of the critically ill patient

2.5   Organ support

2.6   Perioperative care

2.7   The physical and psychosocial consequences of critical care

2.8   End of life care and organ donation

2.9   The practice of anaesthesia as relevant to intensive care medicine

2.10  The practice of surgery as relevant to intensive care medicine

2.11   The practice of medicine as relevant to intensive care medicine

2.12  Neuro-intensive care medicine

2.13  Paediatric intensive care medicine

2.14  Cardiothoracic intensive care medicine

For doctors practicing in anaesthesia as well as intensive care medicine, the RCoA also provides a CPD matrix. This is currently being revised, but on completion will contain the FICM level 2 matrix items as the intensive care component. 

We have produced a CPD logbook using Google Sheets that you are welcome to use if you wish. To download a copy please click here. The logbook will save to your Google Drive, so you may wish to download ‘Google Drive for Desktop’ first. A users guide can be found within the logbook. Whilst we are limited in what additional functionality can be added, we hope you will find it useful. An alternative Word version is also available.

FICM CPD Logbook (Word version)
  • CPD
Download

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