Revalidation – today’s the day

by David Kidney, Chief Executive, UKPHR & Zaira Ejaz, Revalidation & Registration Services Officer, UKPHR

Revalidation – today’s the day

Well, it has been a long time in the planning and implementation, but today is the day. At last UKPHR is pleased to announce that public health specialists on its register will from now on be required to revalidate once every five years. 

Two years ago, a task & finish group helped us to design and map out our revalidation requirements for both specialist and practitioner registrants. (We have not yet implemented the group’s recommendations in relation to practitioners). 

One year ago, volunteer specialist registrants piloted our revalidation arrangements and we were glad to be able to use their feedback to improve the revalidation scheme. 

Six months ago, we sent out the first six-months’ notices to those specialist registrants who are due revalidation from April 2019 to October 2019.  

At the heart of our revalidation scheme is the requirement for specialist registrants to undertake annual professional appraisal.  Zaira is working closely with the public health agencies of the four nations to ensure all eligible specialists are registered on their systems to receive annual professional appraisals for their revalidation.   

In Scotland, it has been agreed that UKPHR’s specialist registrants will receive an annual professional appraisal in support of their revalidation. NHS Health Scotland is working to ensure arrangements for this are in place.  

In Wales, it is intended that UKPHR’s specialist registrants will undertake the same annual professional appraisal that their medical colleagues already undertake. They are also working to ensure arrangements for this are in place. 

In Northern Ireland, our one specialist registrant there has confirmed that the professional appraisal available to medical colleagues will also be available to our registrant. 

In England, Zaira is working closely with Public Health England (PHE) to ensure that all UKPHR’s specialist registrants who come within PHE’s remit have been provided with a SARD (Strengthened Appraisal and Revalidation Database) account.  Currently, 434 accounts have been created for UKPHR-registered specialists and there are a further 42 SARD accounts yet to be created. 

As Zaira now has full access to the SARD electronic system as an administrator, Zaira is managing the pool of UKPHR-registered specialists on SARD by providing appraisal timelines for all of them to take effect from 1st April 2019. She is also making changes and amendments and ensuring the details on SARD are kept up to date for UKPHR’s specialist registrants. 

Zaira and I have been pleased to support PHE in its delivery of a series of full–day workshops about UKPHR’s revalidation scheme for specialist registrants using SARD. The workshops have also focused on how to write a PDP (personal development plan) as part of the annual professional appraisal. Zaira and David have attended workshops in Birmingham, London, Leeds and Nottingham on behalf of UKPHR to assist PHE in answering any questions raised by the audience. 

UKPHR’s website and 4CRM technology have been upgraded and tested in readiness for the introduction of UKPHR’s revalidation scheme. The revalidation process will be a completely online process. Zaira has started assigning the module to specialist registrants who are due for revalidation from April 2019 to October 2019.  

Zaira has received feedback from registrants who are completing their revalidation online for the first time and has made changes to ensure the module is working well. She is also currently saving registrants’ feedback of the revalidation scheme to be considered when UKPHR carries out a first evaluation after 12 months of operation. 

The electronic components include an online application, automated deadlines and messaging and templates for key components of the revalidation process. Zaira has also created a guide for registrants on how to use the revalidation module for their application and this is uploaded to the registrant’s portal when the revalidation module has been assigned.   

UKPHR has received fourteen applications to date for revalidation via the online module of which three applications have been fully completed even before the revalidation start date of 1st April. These three applications for revalidation were considered at the meetings of the Registration Panel and Registration Approvals Committee respectively in March and the three specialists were revalidated successfully. The remaining eleven applications are currently being processed. 

We are grateful to registrants for their patience and understanding while we have been developing this revalidation scheme. For registrants seeking more information, you can find much more detail on our website, including the scheme, guidance, FAQs and a list of approved multi-source feedback tools. 

We are grateful to so many stakeholders for supporting us and getting us to today’s launch. We appreciate the help we received from the task & finish group members, registrants who volunteered to pilot our revalidation requirements and online processes and the public health agencies of the four nations of the UK who have been so constructive and co-operative in helping us to implement our revalidation requirements, including in those instances where we are being given help with the provision of annual professional appraisals. 

We remain in listening mode if anyone wants to provide us with more feedback. As we say, we plan a first evaluation of the revalidation scheme once it has been in operation for a year. Thank you everyone for your help and support. Please maintain your positivity and your commitment.