Managing & Supporting the Poorly Performing Doctor

Enhance your ability to help doctors achieve clinical excellence whilst ensuring you balance both safety and support

One of the most stressful roles a doctor performs is that of managing performance issues with juniors or even colleagues. Despite feeling like a minefield of legal principles, individual sensitivities and clinical governance, using the right approach coupled with effective skills results in rapid attainment or restoration of acceptable clinical standards and a life-long fan thanks to the support you have provided. This comprehensive course is designed to allow consultants and managers to handle a wide variety of performance issues with confidence and in a supportive manner, ensuring that they are safe and the struggling doctor stands the best possible chance of succeeding. This highly practical, leading edge programme will leave you confident of achieving the right impact.

• Identify performance issues early on
• Gain skills in raising areas of concern
• Be confident that you are conducting a robust, safe process
• Ensure doctors are appropriately supported
• Help struggling doctors successfully attain the required levels
• Manage ongoing poor performance appropriately

• What constitutes acceptable versus unacceptable performance
• Passing assessments versus real life clinical performance
• Tell-tale signs of a doctor in trouble
• Ensuring that problems are identified early
• EGOR model for supervising & monitoring junior doctors
• Raising performance issues – communication skills
• Legal principles in poor performance – rights
• Legal principles in poor performance – conducting a safe process
• Managing denial or naivety
• Conducting a performance appraisal when all is not well
• Conducting root cause analysis in performance issues
• Creating a PRP (performance rectification plan)
• Methods & options for restoring or enhancing performance
• What constitutes appropriate support?
• Setting an appropriate monitoring schedule
• Feedback skills when performance issues exist
• Mentoring to restore or augment knowledge and skills acquisition
• Using coaching techniques to help support development
• Fostering self-reliance in meeting learning goals
• Maintaining motivation whilst issues are resolved
• Managing issues identified towards the end of a rotation
• What should you do if performance doesn’t improve?
• Approaching references for doctors where concern exists

This is a supportive but pragmatic course designed to help consultants and others successfully manage a range of performance issues occurring with junior doctors and senior colleagues. The course consists of an engaging mixture of lectures, discussions, exercises and case studies, the latter being particularly useful in devising the best way forward.

These are other courses that provide a good companion to this course.

• Core Skills in Appraisal Effectiveness