Appraisal is often seen as an onerous task, and has not been helped by ever-expanding guidance from the RCGP over the years. And this week, the RCGP has published a trim-yet-muscular updated version of its guidance, under the leadership of Dr Susi Caesar, that will be welcomed by all GPs. Dr Sara Chambers, NASGP’s own appraisal and revalidation lead, has produced a summary of the changes.
The RCGP has responded to feedback from its 2015 revalidation survey by clarifying and simplifying its appraisal and revalidation guidance (RCGP Guide to supporting information for appraisal and revalidation) so that the work involved in appraisal is “reasonable and proportionate”, “does not detract from patient care” or indeed from “time spent with patients, colleagues, friends or family.”
The RCGP also recognised that to date there has been differing interpretations of some of the appraisal and revalidation requirements, which has made the process more onerous than necessary for some.
The brevity and clarity of the 2016 RCGP appraisal guidance is very welcome, and aims to remove these inconsistencies, reduce the burden on GPs and keep relationships with appraisers about “the supportive and developmental focus on quality maintenance improvement ..without a major increase in workload.”
[Tweet “The brevity and clarity of the 2016 RCGP appraisal guidance is very welcome”]
This is all very good news for GPs, and we look forward to seeing this filtering through to our appraisals.
As a result, NASGP AppraisalAid will be updated over the coming weeks to reflect this new guidance. There’s not too much to change, as we’ve always tried to keep AppraisalAid clear and simple, with a slight sprinkling of salt on some of the more onerous, tortuous appraisal stories. But please bear with us over these next few weeks while we tidy things up a bit.
See our full summary of the RCGP 2016 appraisal guide
https://www.nasgp.org.uk/rcgps-simplified-appraisal-guidance-good-news-gps/