MEDICAL COUNCIL
Protecting Patients,Supporting Doctors
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
Role of the Medical Council
Medical Council Eight Domains of Good Professional Practice
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
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
Education and Training functions
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
Registration
Data accessed Q1 2011
• 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
Registration
• Medical Council sets and promotes standards for doctors
• Ethical guide updated during each term of Council
• Guidance on issues relating to conduct, ethics, treatment
Professional Conduct & Ethics
Maintaining competence, maintaining trust
Source: Millward Brown Lansdowne for the Medical Council , 2011
• Statutory duty for doctors to maintain professional competence since May 2011
• Lifelong learning and skills development
• Continuous professional development and clinical audit activities.
Professional Competence
Planning and delivering new functions
ALL SOME
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
• 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.
Health Subcommittee
• ‘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
The Regulator’s Role
