Consultation on a new Chiropractic Quality Standard: Low Back Pain and Sciatica

Quality Standards are tools designed to help deliver the best possible outcomes for patients. They are a series of specific, concise quality statements with associated measures that provide aspirational, but achievable, markers of high-quality patient care covering the treatment of different conditions. They also play an important part in addressing the increasing priority being placed on improving quality and patient outcomes.

The Royal College of Chiropractors (RCC) announces the launch of a consultation on a draft RCC Low Back Pain & Sciatica Quality Standard which updates, combines and replaces the previous Quality Standards on Chronic Low Back Pain and Acute Low Back Pain. The views of all stakeholders including interested organisations, chiropractors, other healthcare professionals, patients and the public are sought.

Comments are invited on any aspect of the document including its relevance and applicability to the chiropractic profession, the achievability of the standards described in the quality statements, the utility of the quality statements in terms of promoting best care, the document’s accuracy and validity in terms of the evidence base and the clarity of the content to practitioners, patients and other stakeholders.

Any comments must be submitted by the deadline of 12 noon on Friday 2nd August 2024 using the consultation form provided. Comments will inform the production of the final version of the quality standard which will be widely publicised.

You can read the draft document and participate in the consultation here

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RCC Health Policy Unit publishes new advice note on Navigating Consent

RCC Health Policy Unit publishes new advice note on Navigating Consent

RCC Health Policy Unit publishes new advice note on Navigating Consent

The RCC’s Health Policy Unit has today issued a new advice note to help chiropractors navigate consent in light of the landmark Montgomery ruling.

Chiropractic Practice Standard: Clinical Record Keeping

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Chiropractic Practice Standard: Clinical Record Keeping

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Chiropractic Practice Standards are evidence-based documents designed to help chiropractors meet their obligations in the provision of patient care and/or the governance of their services. For each area of practice, they:

  • Highlight relevant elements of the General Chiropractic Council’s Code, and relevant legislation, as requirements;
  • Provide expected standards of practice informed by the evidence;
  • Provide additional helpful guidance; and
  • Provide a benchmark for normal practice.

The RCC’s new Chiropractic Practice Standard on Clinical Record Keeping, formally launched today, focuses on the principles and expected standards of clinical record keeping in a chiropractic care setting and aims to assist chiropractors to achieve those standards.

Consultation – Chiropractic Practice Standard: Clinical Record Keeping

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CONSULTATION – Chiropractic Practice Standard: Clinical Record Keeping

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Chiropractic Practice Standards are evidence-based documents designed to help chiropractors meet their obligations in the provision of patient care and/or the governance of their services. For each area of practice, they:

  • Highlight relevant elements of the General Chiropractic Council’s Code, and relevant legislation, as requirements;
  • Provide expected standards of practice informed by the evidence;
  • Provide additional helpful guidance; and
  • Provide a benchmark for normal practice.

This new Chiropractic Practice Standard focuses on the principles and expected standards of clinical record keeping in a chiropractic care setting and aims to assist chiropractors to achieve those standards. The RCC now wishes to consult on the content of the draft document.

The consultation is aimed, in particular, at the chiropractic profession, but the RCC is also keen to hear from other health professionals, health & care organisations, commissioners, patients and the public. It particularly wishes obtain views on the following questions:

  1. Have we identified all the relevant requirements of chiropractors in the context of clinical record keeping
  2. Do the expected standards of practice reflect normal practice and have we included the appropriate evidence to support them? Is anything missing?
  3. Should we include any additional guidance?
  4. Are our statements clearly expressed such that chiropractors, other health professionals, health & care organisations, commissioners, patients and public can reasonably be expected to understand what we mean?

The consultation document and response form are available here:

Clinical Record Keeping Consultation Document

Consultation Response Form

Deadline for receipt of responses: 5pm, Friday 19th May 2023

The consultation has now closed

New CPiRLS Safer Practice Notices recently published

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NEW CPiRLS Safer Practice Notices recently published

The new CPiRLS Safer Practice Notices have now been published on our publications page. This includes:

CPiRLS Safer Practice Notice 001u2 Falls
CPiRLS Safer Practice Notice 002u2 Rib Fracture
CPiRLS Safer Practice Notice 003u Continuity of Care
CPiRLS Safer Practice Notice 004u Pelvic Girdle Pain
CPiRLS Safer Practice Notice 005u Syncope
CPiRLS Safer Practice Notice 006u Underlying Pathology

RCC Publishes Patient Communication Practice Standard

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RCC Publishes Patient Communication Practice Standard

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Chiropractic Practice Standards are a new series of evidence-based documents designed to help chiropractors meet their obligations in the provision of high quality patient care and/or in ensuring good governance of their services. The RCC’s first Chiropractic Practice Standard, which has been officially launched today, focuses on communication with patients.

COVID-19 Infection Prevention and Controls (IPC) rules withdrawn

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COVID-19 Infection Prevention and Controls (IPC) rules withdrawn

The governments of England and Wales have withdrawn their final COVID-19 Infection Prevention and Controls (IPC) rules, namely the PPE requirement for face masks to be worn in healthcare settings, unless there is a known Covid infection risk. For Scotland, the use of face masks will continue in healthcare settings, although expectations are that this rule may be withdrawn in July. Face mask use is still encouraged in Northern Ireland.

RCC Publishes Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates

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RCC Publishes Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates

The RCC is pleased to announce the publication of Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates, a document that defines the knowledge, skills and competencies that are expected of newly qualified chiropractors in the UK. The document has been produced by the UK Forum of Chiropractic Deans (FCD), a group comprising the leaders of all the UK chiropractic programmes and the Royal College of Chiropractors.

Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates is informed by the Musculoskeletal Core Capabilities Framework, and closely maps to the IFOMPT Educational Standards in Orthopaedic Manipulative Therapy. It is aligned with the GCC Code, and supplements the GCC Education Standards by defining the core of what chiropractic graduates need to know and be able to do at the point of graduation.

It is the FCD’s role to keep Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates up to date in consultation with the profession and the General Chiropractic Council such that it reflects the current requirements of contemporary practice.

HPU Bulletin: New Chiropractic Quality Standard for Headache

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HPU Bulletin: New Chiropractic Quality Standard for Headache

HPU Bulletin: New Chiropractic Quality Standard for Headache

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Health Policy Unit has announced the publication of a new quality standard which covers the chiropractic assessment and management of adult patients presenting with headache.

Headaches are one of the most common health complaints, with most people experiencing them at some point in their life. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that almost half of all adults worldwide will experience a headache in any given year. In the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, headache disorders were the second most prevalent condition worldwide, as well as the second highest cause of years lost due to disability (YLD).

In the UK, migraine headache occurs in 15% of the adult population, with around 200,000 individual episodes estimated every day, resulting in high levels of disability and work absence, as well as having a significant impact on the wider economy. Episodic tension-type headaches affect 80% of people at some time, and are chronic (having more days with a headache than without one) in up to 3% of the population. Medication-overuse headache is the third most common cause of headache, affecting up to 2% of adults. Despite these figures, headache is under-estimated, under-diagnosed and under-treated, and remains a major public health concern.

Chiropractors regularly see patients that present with headache, often having not been seen by any other healthcare professional, and with no diagnosis having been made. Chiropractors have the skills and competencies to assess patients in order to diagnose most primary headaches, identify secondary headaches that require further investigation and, importantly, recognise the red flags that indicate a medical emergency.

As well as having a role in the management of some primary headaches and a few secondary headaches (in particular cervicogenic headaches), chiropractors also play an important public health role in providing support and advice to patients, signposting and making appropriate referrals.

There are a wide range of different patient presentations associated with headache and the management in each case will be different, requiring an individualised approach. The quality statements that comprise the new Headaches Quality Standard are therefore general but, nevertheless, provide aspirational but achievable markers of high-quality, cost effective patient care.

Given the chronic nature of many headaches, where appropriate, the Headaches Quality Standard should be read in conjunction with the chiropractic quality standards on “Chronic Pain” and “Supportive Self-Management in Chronic Care”, both also published by the Royal College of Chiropractors.

All the RCC’s Chiropractic Quality Standards are available for download here in full and abbreviated versions. Note that a  separate copy of the Headache Assessment & Management Flowchart, which forms part of the full version of the Headaches Quality Standard, is available on the same webpage.