How Accreditation Practices Impact Building a Specialist Medical Workforce

Overview

The Department of Health is undertaking a project which will examine how the current specialist medical college accreditation systems and practices impact rural and regional training opportunities for non-GP specialist medical trainees.  This will include looking at the links between accreditation and the rural specialist medical workforce in relation to distribution and alignment with community needs for services.

The project will provide the Department with a range of information for internal use to better understand the processes for accreditation of specialist medical training positions across specialties.  

The Department will engage with a range of key stakeholders to gather their views and experiences in seeking and gaining accreditation within the current regulatory framework. This will include how the overall accreditation systems create opportunities or present barriers to accreditation of rural training sites.

The project will also capture the college’s current review activities, or plans for review of their own accreditation processes, as well as examples and case studies of both successful and unsuccessful attempts to gain accreditation in non-traditional settings.

The project outcomes will inform future policy and program work by the Department in the area of non-GP specialist medical training and where appropriate may also contribute to the development of the National Medical Workforce Strategy.

Why your views matter

The Department is conducting a preliminary online survey with specialist medical colleges in Phase 1 of the consultation.  In addition to a desktop review of publicly available information on specialist medical college accreditation frameworks, this preliminary survey will capture college feedback on accreditation governance and process to inform the Phase 2 face to face meetings.  

This survey will take approximately 60 minutes to complete.  If you are unable to complete the survey in one sitting, you may choose to 'save' and return to complete the survey at a later time within the survey period.  The survey will close Friday 18 October 2019.

What happens next

The results from this preliminary survey will inform the Phase 2 face to face consultations with specialist medical colleges.  The Department of Health will be in contact with the college to schedule Phase 2 meetings.

Thank you for your participation, should you have any further queries, please contact Valerie Ramsperger 03 9665 8178 or valerie.ramsperger@health.gov.au.