Quality Management - GEAR

Setting Standards: Quality Management - GEAR

GEAR stands for the Graduate Education and Assessment Regulations for KSS Deanery. They provide a coherent approach to the management of quality across KSS and were developed as its response to the National Framework for Postgraduate Medical Education and Training developed as part of Modernising Medical Careers (MMC). The GEAR publication is now in its 3rd edition and can be obtained through KSS Deanery here.

A detailed exercise was carried out to map GEAR to the Standards for Training provided by the GMC; to the quality assurance requirements of the Foundation Programme; to the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) Risk Management Standards for Acute Trusts; and to the Care Quality Commission (CQC’s) Annual Health Check. This provided a robust framework for educational governance required by MMC, made an explicit link with clinical governance, and demonstrated the material benefits available to LEP chief executives who invest in high-quality education.

GEAR prescribes formal requirements for the local academic management of a graduate programme of study. The regulations thus provide a link into the language and processes of university education, reflecting a desire for better articulation between undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. However, it has also been written as a generic document, which could be applied to other, non-MMC areas of education as a means of streamlining and gathering together all of their medical education under one academic umbrella.