Interdepartmental peer review
At long last, speciality support is available to hard-pressed clinical
endocrinologists
- Does your endocrine service need more support?
- Do you need extra staff in your unit?
- Have you found it increasingly difficult to convince managers about
adequate resources for clinical endocrinology?
- Would your unit benefit from an external assessment of clinical
governance & service delivery?
- Have you wondered how your endocrine service compares with services
in other centres?
If the answer to one or more of these questions is YES,
you may be interested in volunteering your centre for the Society’s
newly-launched Peer Review Visitation scheme.
The need for Peer Review of UK endocrine units was endorsed by the Clinical
Committee in 2001, and the first visit (to Sheffield) took place at the
end of 2002. The British Thoracic Society has been operating Peer Review
visits for over 10 years and the scheme is widely regarded to be highly
beneficial to both the centres visited and to the Reviewers themselves.
The main aim of the scheme is to improve services for endocrine patients.
Each visit will focus on basic standards for endocrine care and service
provision. The visit will facilitate an exchange of ideas and experiences,
and allow areas of concern to be voiced. The visit report should provide ‘levers
for improvement’ (eg. highlight needs for consultant expansion,
specialist nurse provision etc) and assist in negotiations with management.
The report will also provide useful information for clinical governance
and consultant revalidation purposes.
Each visit will be on a voluntary basis and will aim to support endocrinologists
in the various centres. Two reviewers from different areas of the country
(one based in a teaching centre and the other in a DGH) will undertake
each visit. The visit will take two days, the first of which will be spent
in the teaching centre and the second in one of the ‘linked’ DGHs.
The Clinical Endocrinology Trust has generously provided a grant to defray
expenses in connection with the early pilot visits. It is hoped that all
UK endocrine centres will wish to become involved in due course.
In 2004, Hull & York were visited. If you would like your centre
to be considered for one of these visits, please contact Dr John Bevan (via the Society) .
Alternatively, if you would like to gain experience as a Reviewer,
please also get in touch.
Endocrine centres visited in 2007 were:
- Nottingham City Hospital and Derby Hospitals
- Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester
- Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol
- City General Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent
- Western General Infirmary, Glasgow
Endocrine centres where visits are planned for 2008 are:
- Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge
- Univesity Hospital of Wales, Heath Park, Cardiff
- King's College Hospital, London
Endocrine centres where visits have been requested:
- Leeds General Infirmary
- Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital
- Hammersmith Hospital, London
- Aberdeen/Inverness Hospitals
The Society anticipates a good response to this important new initiative
which seeks both to support Clinical Endocrinologists and to further improve
Standards of Endocrine Care across the UK. The success of the scheme is
totally dependent on lots of people getting involved.
Below you will find the necessary forms and questionnaires (in word doc.
format) which will be used during a visit to your centre.