The purpose of hospital visiting
The purpose of the visit is to provide information about whether PMETB’s standards are being met but it is also an opportunity to feed back to Colleges / PMETB about underlying issues which may affect postgraduate medical education and training generally and for peer exchange.
There are three systems of visiting; two operating within the UK and one in Ireland.
The PMETB visiting system
The PMETB run a regular schedule of Deanery-wide visits. The aim of these visits is to quality assure the mechanisms used by Deaneries to fulfil their role of quality management. The PMETB also has an arrangement for triggered visits if specific training concerns are highlighted by a training stakeholder.
More detailed information is available on the PMETB website
The Deanery-led visiting system
Postgraduate Deaneries are developing their own quality management mechanisms to ensure the standard of training. As part of this overall system, and as outlined by the PMETB, Deaneries have the ability to trigger visits to hospitals where evidence has been produced to show there are viable training concerns. The Colleges and SACs can trigger visits with Deaneries, but only Deaneries can sanction them.
Deanery triggered visits are designed to be specific to the issues and proportional to their severity / size. There is no fixed universal structure for these visits, but they are usually similar in format to the previous SAC triggered visits (please see the section to the left on timetables for an example of this format). The panel usually consists of a representative from the Dean and/or the Deanery School of Surgery, the Training Programme Director and the SAC Liaison Member. The latter provides both the College input and necessary externality. More informal visits may be arranged if appropriate. The visits are organised by the Deanery with involvement where appropriate from the JCST QA Team.
The Republic of Ireland system
As the legislation setting up the PMETB and MMC is not applicable to the Republic of Ireland, it will continue using the SAC quinquennial visit system. Please see the section on the Republic of Ireland for more information.
Page last updated: 23 June 2008
