GMC revalidation proposals are inappropriate

GMC's proposals for revalidation would not be accurate, economical, or fair

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The General Medical Council's proposal for a five-year assessment to identify potentially inadequate doctors would be unfair, inaccurate and very expensive, according to a letter in this week's BMJ.

The proposed system - based on an individual group of assessors for each doctor's review - will suffer from assessor bias and a lack of serious training, making it unreliable and inaccurate, argues Richard Wakeford. Furthermore, estimates of the time needed for the review suggest a cost of at least £50 million a year. A paper based assessment exercise, with a maximum one-day's duration, could be devised as an accurate, economical and fair alternative for predicting clinical performance, he concludes.

Contact:

Richard Wakeford, Convenor of Cambridge Conferences on Medical Education, Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Mobile: 07712 580 460 Email: rew5@cam.ac.uk