Developing flexible accreditation pathways for rural settings

FPM has received funding from The Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care to explore flexible accreditation pathways for pain medicine units in regional and rural Australia.

Supported through FATES funding (Flexible Approach to Training in Expanded Settings), this project endeavours to:

• Identify accreditation pathways that support rural/regional based pain medicine training.
• Consider for approval a preferred accreditation pathway to support rural training.
• Aim to visit and accredit several rural/regional based sites by the end of 2025.

What's happening?

Earlier in the year, we sent out a survey to our fellows and trainees inviting them to be part of the process and help in shaping the flexible pathways for rural accreditation and training.
 
Thank you to the over 70 FPM fellows, trainees and SIMGs who contributed their time, ideas and experiences during the consultation period throughout July - September 2024.
 
This gave us a glimpse into some of the personal challenges our rural pain specialists face because of the limited rural accredited training opportunities in Australia, simultaneously highlighting their dedication and passion in pursuing pain medicine.
 
"Limited rural training options make training difficult - as a rural GP anaesthetist re-training I would love to go back to training and provide a service."
"[It's] too hard to do training by leaving the rest of the family behind."
 
We incorporated what we heard along with a review of the literature to develop models of flexible accreditation for regional and rural pain units to pilot in 2025 and help create more rural opportunities and alleviate some of those barriers that exist today.
 
Each rural pain unit is different and has its own set of strengths and challenges. These models recognise that a blanket approach to flexible accreditation does not work best, and it is designed to be adjustable to be more flexible or less flexible in certain domains – what suits your site best.

Pilots - get involved

As we head into 2025, we look to pilot these flexible accreditation models.
 
These models are designed to meet the current standards that the faculty applies to all FPM-accredited pain units. Maintaining the high standard of accreditation is paramount to ensuring a quality service and training environment.
 
We strongly encourage regional and rural pain units to reach out to us to explore options to be a part of the pilot.
 
We would also love to hear from fellows (metro or rural based) who are interested in supporting rural based trainees in ways that work around their capacity.
 
These pilots will help in laying the foundation for expanding access to rural pain medicine.
 
To learn more about how you can be a part of our pilot in 2025, please reach out to us.