MEDICAL COUNCIL Protecting Patients, Supporting Doctors

1. MEDICAL COUNCIL Protecting Patients, Supporting Doctors

2. Role of the Medical Council • Protects the public through regulation of registered medical practitioners • Registration– approx 18k doctors registered to work in Ireland • Quality assurance of undergraduate & postgraduate education & training • Guidance on professional standards and ethical conduct • Professional Competence and continuous professional development • Disciplinary procedures • Not involved in recruitment – ensuring independence of procedures

3. Medical Council Eight Domains of Good Professional Practice

4. The importance of Medical Education Findings from the US • Students who lack thoroughness and are unable to perceive their weaknesses in the first two years of medical school are more likely...to be identified as unprofessional in the clinical years • Physicians who were disciplined...were three times as likely to have displayed unprofessional behaviour...than were control students. • Among some students, unprofessional behaviour is sustained over decades Source: Papadakis et al (USA) Disciplinary Action by Medical Boards and Prior Behavior in Medical School N Engl J Med 2005

5. Education and Training functions Producing competent doctors • Quality assurance of Undergraduate Medical Education: Accreditation of Medical Programmes and Schools • Using international best practice – the World Federation for Medical Education Standards • Visiting Campuses and hospitals • Intern Year: ensuring quality of experience • Approx 40 clinical training site visits in 2011 • Postgraduate Education: liaison with Postgraduate Training bodies, recognition of specialties

6. Registration Composition of medical register 2011 Grads of IRL med schools EU/ EEA grads Non-EU/ EEA citizens graduated from EU med schools Graduated outside EU/ EEA Data accessed Q1 2011

7. Registration • Supporting doctors to enter Irish workforce • Ensuring registration of doctors who meet Medical Council standards • Registration routes through exams/ internship equivalence/ higher qualifications • Examinations testing clinical, communications and data interpretation skills

8. Professional Conduct & Ethics • Medical Council sets and promotes standards for doctors • Ethical guide updated during each term of Council • Guidance on issues relating to conduct, ethics, treatment

9. Maintaining competence, maintaining trust Source: Millward Brown Lansdowne for the Medical Council , 2011

10. Professional Competence • Statutory duty for doctors to maintain professional competence since May 2011 • Lifelong learning and skills development • Continuous professional development and clinical audit activities.

11. Planning and delivering new functions ALL SOME

12. Responding to performance issues • A doctor subject to complaint may be referred to performance procedures • System enables the Medical Council to handle performance concerns in a timely and fair manner, using a defensible assessment model, to achieve outcomes which protect the public and support doctors. • Not designed with disciplinary intent • Not designed to collect evidence for FTPC

13. Health Subcommittee • Monitors and advises Council about the health of doctors with certain medical problems • Referrals from FtP/ third parties/ self referral • Most commonly mental or physical illness, drug/ alcohol misuse • With the correct interventions, evidence of good outcomes for doctors with health problems balanced with the involvement of the relevant regulatory authority.

14. The Regulator’s Role • ‘Right touch’ regulation – systems developed to protect patients and support doctors • Priority to protect patients • Developing and sustaining a strong workforce – Standards for Education & Training, registration requirements • Supporting doctors – developing systems to support good professional practice Creating a framework in which professionalism can flourish and organisations can be excellent