Viewpoint on revalidation: Celia Ingham Clarke MBE

Celia Ingham Clark MBE, medical director for revalidation and quality for the London region of NHS England and national clinical director for enhanced recovery and acute surgery, talks to FMLM about the new appraisal and revalidation process for all doctors and explains why she believes this is unique opportunity for all doctors at every level to reflect on their own practice and ultimately drive up the quality of patient care. 

What are the key differences between the new revalidation system and the previous way of assessing doctors’ fitness to practise?

Revalidation is an additional measure to help raise the quality of care that doctors deliver. The assessment of doctors’ fitness to practise hasn’t really changed because the organisation, usually through its medical director, wants to be sure that all doctors are fit to practise and there should already be processes in place to deal with doctors where there is a concern about their fitness to practise. However, with revalidation there is a much more systematic approach to helping doctors examine their whole practice and [it] aims to raise the quality of various aspects of what they do.

What are the main skills and competencies being assessed?

Revalidation is not just about one’s clinical skills, it’s about the whole range of one’s practice. It’s measured against the domains of good medical practice as published by the General Medical Council. When you put together your portfolio for your appraisal – which feeds into your revalidation – you will be expected to put in evidence about your continuing professional development, about quality improvement, feedback from colleagues and from patients, details of any significant events that have occurred and any complaints. You’ll be expected to reflect on all of these and ideally demonstrate that you’ve made some change in your practice as a consequence.

What can doctors learn from this new system?