Approvals

Page Contents:

• Approvals - Business Manager Call
• Approvals - EOE
• Approvals - Scenarios
• Approvals - Field Validation
• Approvals - Feedback

Background

All training programmes should be approved by the appropriate regulator, College or other approval giving body or individual. In the case of GP programmes this also includes the practice site and trainer.

For MVP, this covers only GP sites and trainers. 

Recognition and approval of GP trainers (GMC)

Postgraduate bodies include Health Education England and its local offices, NHS Education for Scotland, Health Education and Improvement Wales and the Northern Ireland Medical and Dental Training Agency. They manage the delivery of postgraduate training and must show us they are meeting our standards. (GMC website, 2019)

Deaneries and local offices must check that their training locations meet the standards set out in Promoting excellence. This guide brings together useful information for postgraduate bodies, to illustrate how we quality assure training locations and approve trainers, so we can be sure our standards are met.

https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/how-we-quality-assure/postgraduate-bodies/recognition-and-approval-of-trainers

Under the medical act, GMC can approve and publish a list of GP trainers. However, we don’t currently approve specialty, Foundation, and undergraduate trainers, but we have a process for the recognition of these trainers. This is a local process that involves deaneries, local offices and medical schools making sure trainers meet the required criteria.

GMC publishes information about trainers on the medical register. This includes doctors who have been recognised as a:

1. named postgraduate clinical supervisor
2. named postgraduate educational supervisor
3. lead coordinator of undergraduate training at each placement location; or
4. doctor responsible for overseeing students’ educational progress at each medical school.

Doctors who hold one or more of these roles have a note on their medical register entry to say ‘This doctor is a trainer recognised by the GMC’.

Doctors whose practice contributes to the teaching, training or supervision of students or doctors in training don’t need recognition.

Local recognition may be available to trainers not currently in the four specific roles, including non-medical trainers.

Criteria for trainer recognition - used by GMC

We use the Academy of Medical Educators' Professional standards for medical, dental and veterinary educators (2014) as the criteria against which all trainers in recognised roles must provide evidence of their ongoing professional development. Although these standards have since been updated, we still use the 2014 edition for approval and recognition of trainers.

7 Areas/Domains/Criteria for Approval of Trainer by GMC

1. Ensuring safe and effective patient care through training
2. Establishing and maintaining an environment for learning
3. Teaching and facilitating learning
4. Enhancing learning through assessment
5. Supporting and monitoring educational progress
6. Guiding personal and professional development
7. Continuing professional development as an educator

It is the responsibility of the medical school (undergraduate trainers)/ deanery or HEE Local Offices (postgraduate trainers) to update and maintain their list of approved and recognised trainers with GMC through their secure portal, GMC Connect.

Current list of GP Approved Trainers

https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents/dc11554-sys-list-of-approved-gp-trainers-20190805_xlsx-76217777.xlsx

Current Usage in Local Offices (Is this still up-to-date?)

Scope for Recording Approvals on TIS

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) (TBD)

For MVP, users will be able to

• record the approval type,
• Start and end dates against a trainer person record - this, in turn, will inform whether a trainer can be assigned to trainees, programmes etc across TIS and
• Start and end dates against Site reference - to inform whether sites are current and approved for use.

Post-MVP

• Manage site approvals
• Define pathways
• Assign pathway to trainer
• Confirm trainer accreditation
• Expiry notification
• Manage site visits

Recommendation (To be reviwed - Is this still valid?)

Approvals are widely used for GP practices and others across nearly all Local Offices

1. Develop a solution to support - the solution would entail allowing users to enter periods of Approval into reference data for sites, however, may be more complex for trainers and requires further investigation, as well as granting access to Trainers (see here for Trainer UI)
2. All teams use Hicom supported service (tbd - is this still valid?)

3. Manual workaround - use email / spreadsheet system until a solution can be developed

User Journey

User Stories/ Jira tickets