Are you trained to do the job you do?
As a busy healthcare professional, your own professional development can be the last thing on your mind when you are trying to deliver high quality care to your patients as well as dealing with all the everyday matters of working in primary and community care. However, it is the responsibility of every healthcare professional to ensure that they are trained appropriately to be able to deliver the management and care they are required to perform.
PCRS-UK has developed a document called Fit to Care which provides concise information to help:
- Guide healthcare professionals to facilitate and deliver high quality respiratory care in line with national evidence-based guidance
- Aid healthcare professionals to assess their own competence to deliver such care, and identify and seek appropriate training and ongoing professional development supported by their employers
- Support all healthcare professionals to be accountable and trained to provide such care to a given standard, thereby reducing variation in care and ensuring patients can expect to receive high quality evidence based respiratory care irrespective of who is delivering such care or where in the community that care is being provided
- Provide a reference for service managers to ensure the provision of appropriate educational support programmes for employed healthcare professionals
The document sets out the key skills knowledge and training required for those healthcare professionals working at the following three different levels:
| Level | Skills, Knowledge and Training | Recommended activities to support professional development |
|
Standard: For healthcare professionals working with patients with accurately diagnosed respiratory disease or those working as generalists who are in a position to opportunistically consider an underlying or undiagnosed respiratory condition |
Skills, knowledge and training | Recommended activities |
|
Advanced: Individuals will be able to work autonomously with patients living with respiratory disease (e.g. running respiratory clinics). This includes, but is not limited to, responsibility for assessing, treating, reviewing and providing ongoing management and support including smoking cessation counselling (with support/supervision where necessary) |
Skills, knowledge and training | Recommended activities |
|
Expert: For healthcare professionals working at a high level with complex patients requiring extensive multifaceted intervention including those: |
Skills, knowledge and training | Recommended activities |
Other tools to support professional development
Reflective practice is an important component of continuing professional development and the governing bodies of most professional groups require their members to submit detailed records as part of the revalidation/accreditation process.
This guide to reflective practice document explains the principles of reflection; the process by which healthcare professionals can critically evaluate their own responses to the way things are done and the care that is delivered in order to gain new understanding and improve future practice. This is part of the process of lifelong learning.