Most chambers organise education and SEA meetings however, as an individual GP you will remain responsible for ensuring that you carry out appropriate CPD to keep up to date and meet the requirements of appraisal and revalidation.
Many of the challenges faced by locum GPs in relation to revalidation and appraisal relate to locums being isolated from other GPs and also from the organisational structures that come with working in a practice on a regular and continuing basis. These challenges are referred to in our
guidance on revalidation and appraisal for sessional GPs.
Being part of a chambers can help with this in two main ways. Firstly, it can help locums to feel less isolated with, for example, meetings to discuss significant events or less formal discussions which help locums learn from their experiences. Secondly, the organisational structure provided by the chambers can help locums collect the information needed for appraisal and therefore revalidation purposes – a prime example is patient feedback and colleagues who are readily available to provide colleague feedback.
While the chambers model can provide this help and support, we do not believe that the appraisal and the revalidation processes should be structured around the assumption that locums will be part of a chambers organisation. Due to lobbying from the sessional GPs subcommittee the requirements in the RCGP’s revalidation guide were amended to reflect the way in which sessional GPs work, and this is reflected in our guidance for sessional GPs. Some of these issues are also addressed by a locum GP being part of a Sessional GP group.
Working in a chambers does not impact on who is responsible for locums’ NHS appraisal. All NHS GPs have to be on NHS England’s performers list in order to carry out their work, and NHS England is responsible for carrying out appraisal for all GPs on its performers list.