The college has also urged locums to ensure that they belong to professional networks.

The RCGP is due to update its revalidation guidance, suggesting ways for locums working in different practices to obtain colleague feedback and reflect on significant events.

Version 4 of the RCGP revalidation guide, due out in early June, will list alternative ways for ‘special doctors' including remote and prison GPs to collect the evidence needed for their portfolio.

The college's revalidation lead Professor Mike Pringle admitted there are ‘some challenges' for locum doctors trying to gather supporting information.

Doing a multisource feed-back colleague survey is much more difficult without a consistent set of colleagues, Professor Pringle said. But he advised: ‘You can do a series of questionnaires to practices when you leave, which will do as a colleague survey.'

Discussing significant events with a locum group instead of other GPs in the practice would also be an acceptable way of collecting evidence, he said.

‘Locums need to recognise that operating in complete isolation is no longer going to be a feasible way of working. They are going to need support networks.

‘Practices that are locum-run need to acknowledge that they have a responsibility for helping those doctors gather evidence and to understand their quality of care, to review cases after they have left,' Professor Pringle said.

READ: Revalidation Online Resource

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WATCH: Video - Prof Mike Pringle on revalidation