The General Medical Council has said that longstanding issues with the quality of trainee supervision and support have been addressed.
The General Medical Council (GMC) has lifted the enhanced monitoring status of the medicine departments at Weston General Hospital, operated by University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, after the longstanding issues with the quality of trainee supervision and support were addressed.
The GMC has decided to lift the remaining enhanced monitoring of the medicine programmes after the hospital demonstrated what it calls “significant improvements” in the quality of education and training of trainees. This was confirmed through monitoring visits, NHS England South West quality panels and scrutiny of the GMC’s National training survey, which tracks the experiences of doctors in training across the UK.
“We are very pleased that the concerns relating to the medicine departments at Weston General Hospital have been addressed so effectively, and that the standards for training that are required to prepare doctors for safe, high-quality patient care are now being met,” said Pushpinder Mangat, medical director and director for education and standards at the GMC.
“We have seen clear evidence of significant improvement, including an increase in consultant numbers in the medicine departments, a more proactive approach to identifying concerns, and stronger mechanisms for gathering feedback from doctors in training,” he added.
The hospital’s last inspection report from the Care Quality Commission in October 2022 rated the hospital as “requires improvement”. It concluded that “there was a risk that patient experience was compromised because of operational pressures”.
