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Revalidation must serve doctors and the public

London Zosia Kmietowicz

For it to succeed the system of regulating doctors in the United Kingdom must do more than simply provide a means of identifying "bad" doctors, says the BMA. It should also promote high standards, provide a platform for reflecting on and developing practice, and provide a positive confirmation of doctors’ registration, the BMA says, in a response to a review of revalidation being conducted by the chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson.

The BMA supports the process of revalidation, proposed by the General Medical Council, whereby doctors in the UK are periodically checked for their fitness to practise. And it believes that medical registration should continue to be professionally led. However, to gain public confidence, the process needs to be transparent and sufficiently robust to identify poorly performing doctors, it says.

The BMA states: "The vast majority of doctors provide high quality clinical care to their patients. . . . [Full text of this article]

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