The College has provided a submission to the national consultation on the AMC draft standards and procedures for training site accreditation. These documents are intended to provide a model, outcomes-based framework for all medical colleges to promote consistency of standards for Fellowship training.

ACRRM’s submission made the following key points:

• The general approach of a model, outcomes-based framework to promote consistency and collaboration was supported
• Inflexible, prescriptive standards and processes would not be supported by our college. These would create system rigidities and would not accommodate the small-scale, diverse, and dynamic nature of rural and remote practice.
• Some proposed procedures were administratively and staff resource intensive and would need adjustment to provide sufficient flexibility. While potentially suitable for tertiary hospital training sites, they are unfeasible for ACRRM’s over a thousand training sites in small rural general practices and in rural and remote hospitals and health services.
• The consultation period was insufficient for meaningful consideration and feedback from ACRRM’s training posts’ supervisors and staff, registrars, training and education staff, or governance committees. Further opportunity for consideration and feedback from these key stakeholders was required.

ACRRM has been engaged over 2024 in the project to identify consistencies, develop national reporting and data sets, and set minimum quality standards across all medical college training sites’ accreditation, monitoring, and support processes. The draft AMC standards and procedures have been developed in association with this work.

Should you require any further information please contact the policy team at policy@acrrm.org.au.