Bull In a China Shop . Dim Carol Black's Revalidation/Relicensing Mini Project.

Dim Carol Black
Fresh from the MMC Fiasco to the Revalidation/Relicensing Catastrophe.

I have been observing Dim Carol Black for a while. From the impromptu "vacation" she took during the Dr Scot Jnr scandal to her failure to admit her involvement in his take down. Dim Carol Black is not loved by any junior doctor. Indeed, Dr Rant features the latest shoe throwing episode [ which is hilarious]. The masterful Dr Rant is back on form. I am pleased about that.

Dim Carol Black was one of the architects of the MMC fiasco. Her work cannot be seen to have been good at all. The Tooke Report etc show this. My fellow blogging friends at the Rant Foundation may be able to outline Carol Black's actual role in the MMC Fiasco in detail. This is vital because we do need to observe what the quality of her performance will be in revalidation and re licensing. Here she is missing from the Committee meeting at the GMC while they were discussing revalidation etc "Apologies for absence were noted from Professor Dame Carol Black, Professor Bulstrode, Professor Dunlop, Dr Jenkins, Dr Lewis, and the Chief Medical Officers for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales" [5th December 2007]. Perhaps she was lost in the baggage compartment of Terminal 5 Heathrow.

Fresh from one fiasco, she is now moving into another fiasco to be - Revalidation and Relicensing.

This link is rather interesting. The Academy of Medical Colleges shows Dim Carol Black as part of the group. The website states

"An Academy/GMC Steering Group has been established to facilitate collaborative working on revalidation. This overarching group is jointly chaired by Professor Sir Graeme Catto and Professor Dame Carol Black and contains five GMC Council members and six College Presidents"

Here she is on the Revalidation group at the Department of Health.

Here she is again

"Members of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges will have a central role in setting standards for recertification and designing the methods by which doctors will be evaluated against those standards. Its president Dame Carol Black said: ‘I welcome this opportunity to help shape the development of revalidation. The Academy and the Royal Colleges have an important role to play in the development process. We will be working with the GMC and others to establish standards for specialist practice that doctors will have to achieve to obtain specialist recertification.'

And again, here she is giving all doctors careers advice. Is the careers advice as good as the MMC Fiasco :)?

Here is the prized article that amused me no end. Carol Black speaking on professionalism. This GMC article is a fascinating account of how divorced from reality Dim Carol Black really is. Here we observe the use of flamboyant words mish mashed together in the hope that no one understands it. What does Carol Black mean because she certainly cannot practise what she preaches.

"I believe that developments in professional education and training, and guidance in the wake of regulatory development and reform, will enhance the new professionalism in important ways. This is especially so now that the relationship between the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) and the Colleges is on a surer footing, with the intent to have a single regulator [the Secretary of State announced earlier this year that PMETB will be merged with the GMC in 2010]"

Can we mention the Tooke Report here then :).

She went onto say :-

"Effective teams bring together people of different disciplines, crossing professional boundaries. They invoke a sense of shared purpose, and a firm commitment to collaboration as a way to improve care. They depend on sound and continuing education and training, a culture of improvement and governance arrangements to sustain improved performance, coupled with effective leadership. Are these harmonies not expressions of professionalism first, rather than regulatory tidiness?"

Can we me mention the Tooke Report here again :).

Actually, we ought to mention Carol Black's speech at the Health Select Committee here which is even more amusing.

Remedy UK gives us some interesting gems

"Shockingly, Dame Carol also claimed that none of the royal colleges ever saw a completed MTAS application form. She told MPs: ‘They saw parts of it, but a completed form was never sent for their approval.’

"Dame Carol admitted that the Academy in particular had not been strong enough, describing it as existing only ‘in rather rudimentary form’. She said: ‘Each college did its very best with individual needs. What was lacking was we did not act together as an Academy…That is a definite lesson to be learnt.’

"Dame Carol said failure of the DH to respond to the report was creating ‘unease’ within the profession and declared there was ‘an urgent need’ for one to be issued"

"MPs also took the opportunity to quiz Dame Carol about the controversial letter that she co-authored with the then-BMA chairman Mr James Johnson. BMA council members forced Mr Johnson from his post following the letter’s publication in The Times.

Labour MP Dr Doug Naysmith asked Dame Carol why she had used the letter to express confidence in Sir Liam Donaldson when he had been so widely criticised. Dame Carol responded: ‘The letter was an attempt at unity that obviously did not work well…In supporting the CMO we were supporting the principles as expanded in MMC.’

And here is Carol Black speaking on Clinical Responsibility and doctors as managers. More large words but not quite in the right order. Of course, she doesn't mean any of it. For Dim Carol Black, its all show and little action.

During the Tooke Report, the letters were the most interesting. Black was condemned for her role in the MMC fiasco. She has not been held accountable. She has just gone from one titanic to a second revalidation/relicensing ship.

So from the public/doctors, the comments were as follows

1. Dame Carol Black needs to concentrate on a single role instead of spreading herself so thinly amongst many becoming ineffectual, to put it politely.Patrick Murray, Leeds, UK

2. When will they do the right thing and resign? J.Newman, Ringwood, Hampshire

3. It is time for some accountability - Donaldson and Black should resign. There is a lot of repair work that needs to be done to the medical profession and getting rid of those responsible for the mess only seems sensible. Waqas Ullah, Hornchurch, Essex

4. Sir Liam Donaldson and Dame Carol Black must resign and it is sad that thy may need to be pushed. They have presided over an extremely damaging assault on medical training with an unbelievable smugness and complacency. They are responsible and there will be little confidence in solutions for future years until they are replaced..RA, Edinburgh

5. Donaldson and Black both forced through the horrors of the MMC Fiasco despite virtually every doctor in the country - including medical students - warning them time and time again that this would prove disastrous. They would not listen to anyone, and insisted on ruining the careers and personal lives of tens of thousands of young doctors, let alone exposing our sick and vulnerable patients to poorly trained and demotivated medics. Their idiocy and contempt for the wishes and advice of their colleagues have now been exposed to the shock and disgust of the wider world and their positions must now be considered untenable. Donaldson and Black HAVE to go, they have lost all credibility, respect and trust and are the pariahs of the medical world. jonny, Durban, South Africa

6. Donaldson and Black must go. The sooner the better . Ciaran, Colchester,

7. Sir Liam Donaldson and Dame Carol Black must now resign. If it were up to the medical profession as a whole, they would be stripped of their peerages.

Could it happen again? It WILL happen again because it is unbelievable that these 2 have survived this long. Whatever forces have protected them so far will clearly act to protect similar disastrous leaders so willing to sell their colleagues down the river in exchange for political honours. The UK is very good at conducting detailed enquiries or reviews. But we are hopeless at really changing anything. An American who has been in senior management positions in the UK and is now non-executive board member of a PCT told me this 'remember, the British always, always temporise. They rarely do anything definitive until absolutely forced to do so'

MD, London, UK

8. I note that your contributors have called for the resignations of Liam Donaldson and Carol Black. Both clearly must answer for their parts in the mismanagement of the past year of MMC and should go. To me it was noticeable that the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board, the QUANGO headed by the notorious Prof Rubin is to be 'incorporated' into the GMC, ie got rid of as it was not up to the task. Prof Rubin, readers will remember, penned the Pilate-like 'not me guv' letter. Let us hope that now his QUANGO is no more that he too will, at last, do the honourable thing! David L. Cox, Loggerheads, UK

9. I think Dame Carol Black and Sir Liam Donaldson have now lost the confidence of their professional colleagues and should resign. Dr Peter Davies, Halifax, West Yorkshire

10. Liam Donaldson and Dame Carol Black should have the decency to resign. Sarah, London.

And there we have it, Carol Black didn't resign, she was never held accountable for her mismanagement of the MMC, she lay in the background while Elisabeth Plaice did her job for her in shutting down criticism. She was not outspoken about the fact that Dr Scot Jnr had been suspended. She remained tight lipped. Now, she fails to answer the GMC as to her involvement in the Dr Scot Jnr issue.

Instead of holding her accountable, she is now spearheading revalidation and relicensing, which is the next disaster due to hit the medical profession's fan. Is that what they do these days - promote incompetent senior doctors with a record of placing doctors livelihoods at risk and placing patient safety in jeopardy.

Having ruined the lives of a thousands of MMC doctors, she will probably start to ruin the lives of 300,000 more doctors during revalidation and relicensing. She does remind me of a bull in china shop. Where there is the reckless Carol Black, there is certain disaster.

And that is Dim Carol Black in a nutshell.

NB Dim Carol Black [phrase] copyrighted to Angus Dei :).