PRACTICE ACCREDITATION

By The College
Contact the author by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

Practice Accreditation contains many of the indicators that are contained in the organisational section of the new GMS contract.

So, if you have already completed Practice Accreditation, you should find that you are very well prepared for this part of the new contract. Some of the criteria in Practice Accreditation are exactly the same – for example, in the records section the criterion about the system to receive any hospital report or investigation result; other criteria are equivalent – for example, in the medicines management section where the criterion relates to emergency equipment and drugs. In some criteria the standard to be achieved is a little different – for example, the recording of smoking habit required for the new contract is 55% but only 45% for Practice Accreditation.

If you are undertaking practice accreditation at present, don’t stop! It makes sense to concentrate on the quality criteria in Practice Accreditation which are also in the contract, as this will contribute towards your points total for the contract. In addition, Practice Accreditation will continue to help doctors meet the requirements of appraisal and revalidation.RCGPScotland is currently in discussion with both the Scottish Executive Health Department and NHS Quality Improvement Scotland about the future development of Practice Accreditation. However, we can confirm that the current version will remain active until the end of 2004.

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.