Blog Archives

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

Access to Health Education England’s IRMER and MRI Safety training for chiropractors

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Access to Health Education England’s IRMER and MRI Safety training for chiropractors

Essential CPD for x-ray referrers
If you refer out for x-ray imaging to private service providers, such as Ramsay Health, Spire etc, you will have found that, as an x-ray referrer, you need to provide evidence that you are up-to-date with your IRMER training. It is common policy to require up-to-date completion certificates from high quality training such as the relevant ‘e-IRMER’ modules on Health Education England’s e-LFH (electronic learning for health) platform.
 
Essential CPD for chiropractors with x-ray facilities
In the best interests of patient safety, remaining up-to-date with all aspects of IRMER is essential for chiropractors who have in-house x-ray facilities.
 
Essential CPD for MRI referrers
If you refer patients for MRI, you may need to show service providers that you are up-to-date with ‘MRI Safety Training for Referrers’, which is also hosted on the e-LFH platform.

Access to e-LFH is normally limited to NHS staff, however I am pleased to advise that the Royal College of Chiropractors has arranged access for chiropractors to the relevant e-IRMER and MRI Safety for Referrers learning modules on the e-LFH platform. This high-quality training is provided free of charge to RCC members and represents another valuable addition to the RCC membership package.

The same training is also available via the RCC for non-members at a cost of £115. If you wish to make use of this essential resource, please contact admin@rcc-uk.org to obtain your access details.

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

Her Majesty The Queen

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Her Majesty The Queen

Her Majesty The Queen

The Royal College of Chiropractors is saddened at the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022, and we offer our deepest condolences to the Royal Family

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.

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.

Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates

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Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates: Consultation on draft document – now closed

The Forum of Chiropractic Deans (FCD) is a group comprising the leaders of the UK’s chiropractic education programmes, and the Royal College of Chiropractors. It has the primary objective of harmonising chiropractic undergraduate education and training outcomes in the UK.

The FCD has produced a draft document entitled Outcomes for Chiropractic Graduates which seeks to define the knowledge, skills and competencies of newly qualified chiropractors in the UK. This document is intended to:

  • Provide a clear framework for new and established programme providers in terms of core curriculum design, helping them produce graduates whose knowledge, skills and competencies meet the needs of the profession.
  • Enable chiropractic students to understand what they will need to know and be able to do at the point of graduation, thus enabling them to play an active role in directing their own learning.
  • Facilitate the identification of knowledge, skills and competencies that are postgraduate/relate to special interests.
  • Enable patients, the public, health professionals, health & care organisations and commissioners to understand and recognise what chiropractors know and are able to do.
  • Ensure postgraduate trainers and employers have a clear understanding and clear expectations of graduates’ attributes and can support and facilitate a smooth transition to autonomous professional practice.
  • Help enable those returning to practice to identify and address professional learning needs.
  • Help enable overseas graduates to recognise the knowledge, skills and competencies required for professional practice in the UK.

The FCD now wishes to consult widely with the UK chiropractic profession, but 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 core competencies required of a recently graduated chiropractor? If not, what’s missing?
  2. Have we included competencies that you consider are not core? If so, please specify.
  3. Are the core competencies 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 is available for review here.

To participate in the consultation, please download and complete the

Consultation response form

and return it to admin@rcc-uk.org by the deadline of 5pm on Friday 6th May 2022.

Merger of the Chiropractic Patients Association and the Royal College of Chiropractors

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Merger of the Chiropractic Patients Association and the Royal College of Chiropractors

The Chiropractic Patients Association (CPA) is a patient-led organisation that has always had the best interests of chiropractic patients at its heart. It was registered as a charity in March 1989 (having previously existed as the Chiropractic Advancement Research and Education Trust Fund) in order to represent and support patients, providing them with information about chiropractic care and helping them with any queries. However, the CPA’s wider activities have always included raising awareness of the benefits of chiropractic care, supporting the education of chiropractic students and practitioners, and raising funds to support chiropractic research.

For the past 18 years, the CPA has worked closely with the Lay Partnership Group (LPG) of the Royal College of Chiropractors (RCC), pursuing similar goals and objectives and even sharing personnel. This has recently led to the CPA Trustees making the decision for the CPA to merge into the RCC and form a new patient committee within the RCC’s organisational structure. The Trustees of both the CPA and the RCC have undertaken appropriate due diligence and unanimously approved this merger, which is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of 2022.

This important development will improve administrative efficiency and ensure the patient-centred objectives of the CPA are sustainable in the long-term. It will also lead to a range of exciting developments and opportunities, including:

– Establishment of a larger and more representative national chiropractic patient forum

– New support materials for patients

– Greater opportunities for patient involvement in a range of activities including active input to consultations

– Support for the development of local patient groups

The new committee will take on responsibility for managing the Patient Partnership Quality Mark (PPQM), and assets transferred from the CPA will be ring-fenced to further the objectives that are currently common to both the CPA and the RCC, including financial support for research.

The CPA’s former Trustees will have an active role in the new patient committee, ensuring continuity in the pursuit of the CPA’s objectives but under the auspices, and with the administrative support, of the RCC. It is hoped that the CPA’s members, who are chiropractic patients, will remain associated with the new organisation; there will be no membership fees for these members to pay in the future, but many more resources to support them and more opportunities for them to have a say in issues that matter to them. A major objective of the new committee will be to grow the membership of this patient body.

Further information about how patients can become involved with the new patient committee will be disseminated shortly after the merger is complete.