Revalidation – what a mess
Coincidentally, just as I have been working myself up into a lather about revalidation (here and here) it seems to have hit a brick wall. It’s getting reported in the medical rags that revalidation is to be delayed for at least a year.
Phew.
That’s about the best way to sum up my general feelings about the current process. Pulse report in a mildy speculative fashion that:
A battle is also raging behind the scenes over how high to set the bar, with ministers placing the RCGP under strong pressure to agree to tougher procedures.
It’s difficult to know what they mean by ‘tougher procedures’ and I wouldn’t trust this government as far as I could kick Ed’s Balls. But they may have a point and this might be related to the fact we haven’t really set a ‘bar’. A trumped-up formative assessment used primarily for developmental purposes doesn’t really constitute a ‘bar’ at all. If I may mix some metaphors: it’s a hoop, not a bar. It will be very interesting to see what ‘tougher measures’ are being considered.
The whole thing is in a dismal state and I am surprised that there seems to be so little noise about this across the blogosphere. Thanks to this swine flu thingy, in medical terms, I would suggest it could be a good week to bury this news and there will little debate about revalidation. Depending on your perspective, delaying revalidation could be interpreted as being good or bad news but it’s difficult to imagine Liam Donaldson is spending much time worrying about revalidation this week.
Most GPs will be thrilled it is being put off. I’m thrilled too, not because of the complete lack of PCT resources to implement it, but mainly for the reason that the proposed revalidation looked so horribly flawed.
