General Optical Council

National Working Group

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Following the publication of the White Paper ' Trust, Assurance and Safety ' in February 2007, the Government established seven national working groups to oversee the implementation of the White Paper across the nine UK healthcare regulatory bodies.

One such group was the Non-Medical Revalidation National Working Group which was tasked with exploring further the issue of revalidation for all health professionals (with the exception of doctors who were covered by a separate working group). The Director of Standards served as the GOC's representative on the Working Group.

In November 2008, the Working Group published their report detailing a set of high-level principles for use by the non-medical health professions regulators to develop proposals on the systems and processes of revalidation for their registrants.

Key principles

  • Consistency: models should be consistent with the Better Regulation Executive’s five principles of good regulation (i.e. transparent; accountable; proportionate; consistent; and targeted where action is needed.)
  • Professional standards: the regulatory body for each profession should set out the contemporary professional standards, which registrants will have to meet in order to maintain registration.
  • Remediation: where revalidation processes highlight performance concerns there should be scope for remediation of the professional but measures to secure public safety must remain paramount.
  • Patient and public involvement: a successful revalidation process must have the confidence of the public that it is appropriate, relevant and fit for purpose.
  • Continuing Professional Development (CPD): this is the process by which individual registrants keep themselves up to date in order to maintain the highest standards of professional practice.
  • Quality assurance: quality assurance mechanisms must be built into revalidation processes.
  • Equality: equality and diversity considerations must be evident in the development of systems and processes for revalidation.
  • Integration: clinical governance frameworks yield information on professionals’ performance and practice. Where appropriate, effective connections need to be made between them and the system of revalidation.
  • UK-wide: revalidation arrangements should be consistent in outcome across the United Kingdom.
  • Demonstrating benefits: the structures and processes of revalidation should be effective in confirming fitness to practise.
  • Information: the nature of the information required by each regulatory body will be based on their risk profiling of their registrant groups.
  • Incremental introduction: the introduction of revalidation should be incremental.

The full report is available to download from the Department of Health's website.