Revalidation

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.

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.

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.