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Summary

The Non-Medical Revalidation Working Group has been established in response to concerns about the variability of arrangements for monitoring the ongoing fitness to practise of a range of different healthcare workers. The group will make recommendations about a new system of appraisal and revalidation for healthcare workers other than doctors.  The group has met twice and will continue to meet on a regular basis throughout 2008/09.

The working group will encompass the professions regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), Health Professions Council (HPC), Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB)+ Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI), General Dental Council (GDC), General Optical Council (GOC), General Chiropractic Council (GCC) and the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC). Together they account for over 1 million regulated health professionals.  It will also need to be mindful of the emerging professions that are due to be regulated in the near future, e.g., psychologists.

Key outputs will include:

• development of proposals for the timely, effective and affordable introduction of a revalidation system for these groups, particular attention being paid to how these interact with existing clinical governance/risk systems
• proposals for  what revalidation will mean in terms of post-registration where appropriate (specialist, advanced or higher level practice)
• a process for establishing common standards across the regulators and clarifying where this is not appropriate
• the use of information systems to collect data that might be used for appraisal and revalidation, and how to overcome problems around confidentiality and data protection issues
• revalidation and appraisal processes for health professionals working in non-NHS sectors, e.g., research, teaching, and independent sector health providers
• models for piloting recommendations made by the group and early discussion of evaluation in order to get robust baseline data prior to piloting any new systems
• the consequences of failed revalidation in terms of systems and support and how this would work with fitness to practise procedures;

In making its proposals, the Group will be mindful of:

(i) the impact of any proposals on employers and other organisations involved in any proposed process, including the capacity that will be required of different organisations to fulfil their part in it;
(ii) the need to ensure that systems and processes fit within the effective burden of regulation;
(iii) the need to ensure that proposed systems are able to accommodate the different work settings and employment arrangements of non-medical healthcare professionals, and the different levels of risk that they carry.