Start of medical revalidation welcomed

Swansea East AM Mike Hedges has joined with Welsh Labour’s Minister for Health and Social Services, Lesley Griffiths, in welcoming the news that medical revalidation will start across the UK.

Medical revalidation is a new process designed to ensure licensed doctors are up-to-date and fit to practise. This will enable everyone to have even greater confidence in all of our doctors. The skills involved in treating patients, who often have an increasing number of complex conditions, the different options for treatment, and the technology involved in modern medicine has increased dramatically in recent decades. There are now over 90,000 technologies in use across the NHS and thousands of new pieces of medical research are published on a frequent basis.

The new system, called medical revalidation, will help doctors keep up to the standard expected of them by ensuring they stay up-to-date with the latest techniques, technologies and research. This will be important in making improvements in the early diagnosis and survival from diseases such as cancer and the better care of patients with conditions such as dementia, which is still poorly diagnosed. It will also ensure doctors are better equipped to help people with long term conditions manage their health better.

Revalidation will also require a doctor to tackle any concerns with important skills such as communication and maintaining trust with patients – which is particularly important when caring for the increasing number of older patients that the NHS treats.