By Professor Stephen Durham,

President of BSACI

In the Department of Health report: “Good doctors, safer patients” published last year, Sir Liam Donaldson placed welcome emphasis on seeking to improve standards and performance of doctors rather than focus on measures that solely identify “problem” doctors. In future (recommendation 26), the process of revalidation for doctors will have two components:

1. Re-licensure – a process of annual renewal of the licence to practise and the right to remain on the Medical Register.

Re-licensing falls under the remit of the General Medical Council  and relies on participation in local governance procedures, documentation of continuing professional development and the process of annual appraisal, measures which are largely ‘in place’.

Specialist re-certification will require that ‘a clear and unambiguous set of standards should be set for each area of specialist medical practice’. Re-certification will need to be renewed at regular intervals of no longer than 5 years and will be under the remit of the Medical Royal Colleges in collaboration with the specialist societies and with input from patient representatives (recommendations 17 and 31).

On behalf of BSACI I attended a meeting of specialist societies at the Royal College of Physicians last September. Following the meeting, in a letter from the President of the College to the Chief Medical Officer, the above recommendations were endorsed and the College and Specialist Societies agreed to work together to identify appropriate methods to support the process. Emphasis was placed on the need for a long-term approach, particularly for developing effective re-certification and also the need for adequate funding to support the substantial resources involved.

A number of ‘generic’ tools are currently being piloted by the college and in the near future I am sure that individual societies including BSACI will be called upon to provide specialist input. Prof Chris Corrigan recently revised the Allergy Specialist Training Curriculum in line with PMETB and has kindly agreed to support the process for re-certification in Allergy. As a start, Chris and I shall attend a workshop at the on Methods for Peer Review being held at the College in April. We also welcome the opportunity to collaborate with our Clinical Immunology colleagues and I am sure that we can pool resources to provide, in due course, a set of ‘workable’ standards applicable to support recertification in both Allergy and in Clinical Immunology.