Interested in Becoming an Accreditation Surveyor?

Health services employing interns and residents are required to demonstrate they offer sufficient experience, education, training, supervision, assessment, evaluation, support, and a safe working environment, to enable prevocational doctors to meet the objectives of their training program. Accreditation surveys are formal evaluations to assess the health site against standards and guidelines to confirm they offer all aspects to their interns and residents.

Any medical practitioner, health professional or education professional who has experience in clinical practice and/or medical education of junior doctors in the health system, can register to become a PMCWA accreditation surveyor.

New surveyors begin as a trainee surveyor. Survey teams include more experienced surveyors, known as support and lead surveyors.

The trainee role is to watch, learn and gradually become more involved in asking questions as part of interviews, and in making contributions to report writing. This will happen under the direction and support of the Lead surveyor, and your responsibilities will increase only as you become more familiar and competent with the process. In particular Directors of Medical Education, Directors of Clinical Training (DCTs), Medical Education Officers (MEOs), Medical Education Registrars (MERs) and junior doctors (Interns and RMOs) are all encouraged to apply.

The length of a survey depends on the nature and/or number of units/departments being reviewed at the site.

The survey itself usually takes half a day or a full day.

Your first step as a trainee surveyor is to take some time to become familiar with the Accreditation Standards used to assess health services. Once familiar with the standards, each survey involves:

• reading all material provided by PMCWA beforehand
• participating in survey interviews
• contributing to report writing.

Time taken to complete tasks depends on the complexity of issues identified at the health service/unit being assessed and the type of survey being conducted.

Working as a PMCWA surveyor is not a paid position. All PMCWA surveyors participate out of interest and goodwill, to contribute to the safe and appropriate training of all junior medical officers in WA.

Surveyors either volunteer in their own time or are released from normal duties by their employer to take part in surveys. If required, the PMCWA Chair can provide a letter of support to your employer.

Yes. If you wish to take Professional Development (PD) leave to participate in a survey, you may request PMCWA provide you with a PD leave support letter as evidence. Most health services allow JMOs to claim PD for surveys.

Several colleges have confirmed that participating in accreditation surveys may be counted towards CPD hours. Specific information pertaining to each college will need to be sourced individually regarding acceptable activities and the evidence required. Surveyors who are Medical Officers under the AMA (WA) Agreement, may wish to use “Office Bearers” leave to attend a PMCWA accreditation survey. This is supported by the AMA (WA).