Doctors 'MOT' Test Revealed

Details have now emerged of how the Government will set about introducing five-yearly 'MOTs' for doctors.

The Government committed itself to introducing a system of re-licensing the UK's 150,000 doctors to test their basic competence as a medic last year, and now a system is being drawn up to be piloted over the next 18 months by Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson.

He said: "At the moment, we rely on trust - and that is right - but we want to underpin that with more objective evidence."

He added as well as "weeding out the bad doctors", the system was being designed to improve the standards of all those practising.

Now, both GPs and consultants will face specific testing to see if they can continue in their specialities in changes that have been dubbed the biggest shake-up in doctor regulation in 150 years.

The Chief Medical Officer's comments were given cautious backing by the BMA.

Its Chairman, Dr Hamish Meldrum said: "The BMA is supportive of plans to appraise doctors in order to develop and improve their skills.

"However, it is essential that the CMO's proposals are not unduly burdensome for doctors and result in them having to spend less time with patients.

"It is vital that the new system is good for patients and fair to doctors," he said.

"The vast majority of doctors are dedicated to providing high quality care to their patients.

"It is important that these proposals are not used to weed out the minority of doctors who are under-performing – there are other processes in place to do this.

"The BMA does have some concerns about the timescales for piloting and implementation and we could not accept a situation where certain specialities were chosen for early roll out, simply because it was considered easier to progress with them first."

(DS)