Quality management

The Scotland Deanery is responsible for ensuring the quality management of postgraduate medical education and training to the standards set by the General Medical Council (GMC).

The General Medical Council : Sets standards for ensuring that doctors are trained to an appropriately high level. It is the regulator for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in the UK.

The Scottish Government: Facilitates and supports the delivery of postgraduate medical education in Scotland. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is directly accountable to the Scottish Government as are all NHS Scotland health boards.

Health Boards in Scotland: Deliver the training, either in hospitals or general practice surgeries. Doctors in training enter a programme and rotate through a number of hospitals or practices to make sure they get a wide range of experience in their chosen specialty. They have to cover a curriculum that is approved by the GMC before completing their training.

The Scotland Deanery and the Medical Directorate of NES quality manage the training delivered by the boards on behalf of the GMC to make sure it is delivered to the right standards and covers the curriculum for the specialty. This is done by getting regular reports and feedback from the trainees and the Boards themselves, and by a programme of visits to ensure that the Boards are providing the time and resources to the trainees to get the best training.

There are 14 territorial Boards and 2 State Boards (the Golden Jubilee National Hospital and the State Hospital) in Scotland.

This page was last updated on: 26.10.2023 at 13.09