Exception Report Guidance for LEPs and Employers

The GMC protocol for making revalidation recommendations states that the Responsible Officer should, when making a revalidation recommendation, consider information from the clinical and corporate governance systems within the doctor’s workplaces.

Exception Reports are the mechanism by which LEPs and employers can inform Dr Geoff Smith, RO for Health Education South West, of any concerns regarding trainees that are logged by their organisation’s clinical governance systems (e.g. Complaints Teams, Incident Reporting systems and HR/Workforce). These could relate to:

  • Conduct (resulting in local HR investigation/action)
  • Capability
  • Named in and significant involvement in SIRIs and Never Events
  • Named involvement in reported incidents or patient safety incidents (at a level where a root cause analysis was required, or disciplinary action required).
  • Named / involved in formal patient complaints (regardless of severity of issue)
  • GMC investigations or action

Where any of the above listed concerns have been raised, an Exception Report should be completed with details of the concern including the date and whether it has been resolved or is continuing. There should be one Exception Report per concern, and they should be submitted to the Revalidation Team as soon as the issue has occurred.

Exception Reports are reviewed by the trainees’ ARCP Panels in conjunction with their Form R and Educational Supervisor’s report.

To enable the ARCP panel and the RO to adequately assess the concern, please ensure that the following details are included as a minimum:

  • Date and a reference e.g. STEIS number or Datix ID
  • Type of concern
  • What happened
  • What was the impact for patients / service users
  • If a complaint – was it upheld
  • Lessons/actions and when completed or due for completion

An Exception Report should always be completed for any trainees under GMC / local HR investigation.

The Exception Report should also always be shared with the trainee in question and appropriate support provided by the LEP/Employer as necessary.