Healthcare World’s Editor-in-Chief Sarah Cartledge speaks to Helen Featherstone, General Manager of GMC Services International about the importance of a comprehensive regulatory framework
Over the past 160 years, the UK’s General Medical Council (GMC) has become one of the leading professional healthcare regulators in the world. From medical school accreditation through to specialist licensing and revalidation, the GMC works through every phase of a doctor’s professional life. GMC Services International (GMCSI) has been established to support the core services provided by the GMC globally, delivering advisory services to ministries and regulators, through a non-UK-centric model.
At the centre of every healthcare system is a secure regulatory framework, surrounded by implementation processes and structures. GMCSI offers a people-centre consulting approach across all elements of the regulatory framework, with patient safety at its core. The knowledge base in place at the GMC on which GMCSI relies, allows for flexibility through experience, offering tailored services to improve the landscape for all healthcare professionals.
Helen Featherstone, General Manager of GMCSI, works closely with International Ministries of Health and Regulators to identify opportunities for more effective regulatory systems. “Ethical guidance is the core of regulation,” she says. “We focus on prevention rather than punishment, and on culture, values, teamwork and leadership as well as process and standards.”
This approach allows the cultivation of a patient-focused culture within a healthcare system to improve safety, access, quality and consistency across highly diverse workforces in order to ‘professionalise the professionals.’ In delivering programmes GMCSI is able to access the GMC’s pool of 1,300 staff and a further 1,000 associates.
Empowering healthcare professionals
By creating supportive environments and nurturing healthcare workers through their professional journey, GMCSI is able to provide structures to maintain and improve standards. These structures encourage and empower healthcare professionals to seek out opportunities and embark on a journey of life-long learning to develop their careers and provide patients with the best quality services.
“Medical doctor registrations ensure all practising professionals in the region are certified, and regulators can check that doctors keep their knowledge and competences up to date through revalidation processes every 5 years,” she says. These registers prove to be the key to successful regulation, providing a means for maintaining contact, collecting fees and supporting revalidation and fitness to practise or FTP decisions. Moreover, these systems give authorities the ability to proactively plan their workforce, ensuring compliance with key activities, as outlined by each region. These registers are made visible to the public through the General Medical Council website to foster public confidence in medical doctors working within the United Kingdom.
Regulating healthcare professionals
GMCSI has offered advice and guidance on setting up robust registration and licensing processes to a number of countries which promoted revalidation as standard to encourage continuous career development for their workforce.
One example looked specifically at reforming an overly bureaucratic process in a country in the Middle East, that was unable to deliver the number of licensed doctors needed. The process delayed newly qualified medics from registering and applicants were moving on to other regions before their registration had gone through. The system review undertaken by GMCSI led to the implementation of a fast-track system for applicants with certification from other reputable healthcare systems regulators, under the guidance of the GMC. The system enabled the establishment of an effective process with a balance between competitiveness and risk. In order to ensure efficiency, a programme to reduce the wait time for primary source documentation verification for the regulation of new healthcare professionals was also produced.
Medical education standards and outcomes also play an important role within the overall regulatory framework. “It is important to understand how to work with medical schools to make sure they are delivering against all the required standards,” states Helen, highlighting the importance of a fully comprehensive regulatory system from the schools through to the hospitals.
In order to deliver a completely comprehensive system, the regulatory framework must go even further.
“Fitness to practise is key, but actually we find the complaints process is of huge importance. GMCSI recently supported a new regulator of healthcare professionals in an African country, specifically focused on the processes behind complaints handling. The regulator focused on setting up fitness to practise rules and was given guidance on legislative requirements, as well as drafting decision outcomes, information handling, detailed triage decision making policy, sanctions and fitness to practice publications policy.”
GMCSI is able to draw on a wealth of experience from the GMC to provide knowledge and guidance for every regulatory system, with access to consultants in registration, revalidation, fitness to practise, medical education and guidance on medical ethics. Regulatory system reviews are crucial, and up to date practices provide the foundations for a stable healthcare landscape. A well-designed system allows for doctor satisfaction by encouraging career progression through continuous support systems surrounding revalidation. Taking care of this environment provides the best service possible to patients and enables positive outcomes through a reliable and trusted complaints procedure.
A well-designed system limits the risk of harm to the public, placing patient safety at the heart of the regulatory framework.