The Minister for Health has signed into law new requirements that make it mandatory for doctors to participate in professional competence schemes designed to ensure their skills and training are kept up to date.
Minister Mary Harney has signed the commencement order which will bring into operation, from Saturday May 1, all remaining provisions of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007.
Part 11 of the Act, which provides for the mandatory participation of doctors in these programmes, was not signed when the legislation was first enacted, so as to allow the Medical Council time to set up the necessary structures. However, the Council informed Minister Harney last December that she could now go ahead and commence the provision.
According to a report in Irish Medical Times, doctors will have to participate in 50 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) a year, or 250 hours over a five-year period, and their compliance with this requirement may be audited at any stage. Approximately 50 per cent of doctors are already participating voluntarily in such programmes.
Council President Prof Kieran Murphy said he was ‘delighted’ that the Minister for Health had signed the commencement order as of May 1. “From this date, doctors will have one year within which to register with a professional competence scheme,” he stated in the Council’s latest eNewsletter.
The Council is writing to each medical practitioner to officially inform them that this part of the Act has commenced, and explaining what will be required of each doctor.
It has issued a short questionnaire to all doctors on the General and Specialist Division of the Register requesting that they provide information regarding their registration with the Council and their alignment to a postgraduate training body for professional competence purposes.
In addition, Prof Murphy has announced the appointment of Dr Paul Kavanagh as the Council’s new Head of Professional Competence. Dr Kavanagh, who will take up the post in June, comes to the Council with a wealth of health-sector experience and has particular expertise in the areas of public health, patient safety and healthcare quality.
While the ultimate responsibility for bringing in professional competence lies with the Medical Council, it has devolved responsibility for the day-to-day administration of the schemes to the various recognised postgraduate training bodies, such as the Irish College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
A common framework document has been agreed between the Forum of Irish Postgraduate Medical Training Bodies – an umbrella body representing all of the training bodies – and the Medical Council to provide a number of core principles on top of which specific schemes can be developed for such divergent specialists as psychiatrists, anaesthetists and public health doctors.
Mandatory clinical audit will also form part of the new requirements, and will be a new departure for most medical practitioners. This will involve the systematic review and evaluation of the doctor’s current practice, with reference to research-based best standards, so as to improve patient care. Examples of ways doctors may participate in clinical audit include: analysing patient outcomes; analysing department outcomes; double reading scans or slides; and patient satisfaction surveys.
The exact way the schemes will be financed has yet to be finalised, although it is expected that the medical profession, the HSE and the Department of Health will all have to contribute in varying degrees to the cost.
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