The purpose of gathering and reflecting on this feedback is to understand what your patients and others think about the care and services you provide; to help you identify areas of strength and those in need of development; to highlight changes you can make to improve the care or services you provide; and to evaluate whether changes you have made to your practice in light of earlier feedback have had a positive impact.
At least once in each revalidation cycle you must reflect on feedback from patients, collected using a formal feedback exercise.
If you do not have patients you should reflect on feedback from others you provide medical services to. If you can’t collect such feedback, you must agree with your responsible officer that you do not need to.
Feedback you reflect on should be collected in a way that is appropriate for your patients and the context in which you work.
At each appraisal you should reflect on any other sources of patient feedback you can access, that give you helpful information about your practice (such as unsolicited feedback).
You should reflect on patient feedback that covers your whole scope of practice across each revalidation cycle.
You must reflect on feedback and if appropriate, act on it in a timely manner and discuss how it has informed your practice at your appraisal.
All doctors in Wales have access to Orbit360, an approved on-line resource to support the collection of patient and colleague feedback.
Reflecting on your patient feedback will help you understand their experience as a patient and how they view your practice. This will help you identify changes you need to make to your practice to improve the care or services you provide. It will also allow you to identify your strengths so you can build on these further. You may also be able to evaluate whether changes you have made to your practice in light of earlier feedback have had a positive impact.
At least once in each revalidation cycle you must undertake a formal exercise to collect, reflect on and discuss feedback from patients.
One of the principles of revalidation is that patient feedback should be at the heart of doctors' professional development.
In addition to the required formal exercise you may have other sources of feedback from patients, such as 'friends & family'; social media, focus groups, suggestions boxes, ad hoc informal feedback. All feedback from patients, both formal and informal, may lead to valuable reflection.
The MARS template is there to help you, and ensure that the relevant points are covered.
Compliments and Complaints are specific examples of patient feedback that you are required to review every year (see Compliments and Complaints section).