2014 News and earlier
Study Bursaries
The Royal College of Chiropractors is pleased to announce that a number of bursaries are to be awarded for the coming 2014/15 academic year to enable RCC members to register for Masters-level modules in Research Methods, Evidence-based Practice of Clinical Audit at little or no cost to themselves.
Detecting Atrial Fibrillation with manual pulse palpation
Simple, manual palpation of a patient’s pulse could help in the detection of atrial fibrillation (AF), a significant risk factor for stroke. The RCC Health Policy Unit has highlighted a recent article that suggests more opportunistic testing of patients could help in the detection of AF, which is often asymptomatic.
CPD & Code of Practice/Standard of Proficiency focus groups
The GCC is holding focus groups throughout September and October in order to inform its reviews of the CoP & SoP and its CPD scheme. Full details of these events, including dates and timings and how to register, can be found here. The GCC has also launched a short survey on how chiropractors select CPD providers, accessed here.
Launch of a new online learning programme on practice/service development
The RCC has launched a series of ten new online learning modules. Designed to assist chiropractors in ethical practice/service development, these modules are free to current PRT candidates. Please contact admin@rcc-uk.org for more information.
Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals
The Law Commission has published a report and draft Bill describing its recommendations to Government for the regulation of health care professionals (including chiropractors) and, in England only, the regulation of social workers.
New GCC CPD Guidance
The GCC has produced new CPD guidance which seeks to clarify CPD activity it will not recognise in terms of chiropractors’ statutory CPD requirements. Note that the CPD rules have not changed.
New Chronic Low Back Pain Quality Standard
The Royal College of Chiropractors announces the publication of a new Chiropractic Quality Standard for Chronic Low Back Pain.
Designed to help deliver the best possible outcomes for patients, the RCC’s Quality Standards are a series of specific, concise quality statements with associated measures that provide aspirational, but achievable, markers of high-quality patient care.
Referring to the new standard, Stuart Smellie FRCC, who led the development group, said:
“This standard defines to everybody what high quality chiropractic care for chronic low back pain should look like. It provides an evidence-based quality of service that all chiropractors should aspire to provide.”
The full document can be downloaded here. A separate list of the quality statements is available here. An associated audit toolkit is available to members from the Audit menu.
Osteoarthritis: care and management in adults
NICE has released an updated guideline on the management of osteoarthritis. The RCC’s Pain Faculty has produced a summary of the guidelines, available here.