Reaccreditation: the why, what and how questions

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• General Practice
• Professional Development

Background:

• Reaccreditation is a debated topic in UK general practice, often viewed through a medico-political lens.
• Existing discussions often overlook the broader educational and service implications for the profession and National Health Service.
• A need exists to explore the purpose, assessment criteria, and measurement feasibility of reaccreditation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To broaden the debate on general practice reaccreditation in the UK.
• To examine the purpose (why), assessment qualities (what), and measurement methods (how) of reaccreditation.
• To propose a feasible and appropriate yardstick for reaccreditation.

Main Methods:

• Exploration of the purpose and qualities of reaccreditation for general practice.
• Identification of assessment criteria and methods suitable for measuring experiential learning.
• Consideration of the feasibility and acceptability of proposed assessment methods.

Main Results:

• Experiential learning, rather than competence or performance, is proposed as a suitable measure for reaccreditation.
• General criteria and specific characteristics for assessing experiential learning have been identified.
• The feasibility and acceptability of applying these methods require further refinement and field-testing.

Conclusions:

• Reaccreditation has significant educational and service implications for UK general practice, necessitating careful consideration.
• Learning from experience is a viable and appropriate metric for general practitioner reaccreditation.
• Successful refinement and field-testing of assessment methods could facilitate reaccreditation implementation in exchange for professional safeguards.