Domain 5

prevocational training and accreditation. These connections have been particularly useful for NT being relatively new (7 years) into the Intern accreditation and training space allowing and enabling the NT to learn from other PMCs. The Postgraduate Medical Council of Queensland was when it was the accrediting authority for interns in Queensland particularly collegiate and helpful in assisting the NTPMC. Particularly in establishing the Intern Accreditation System and then guiding and advising the Executive Officer in facilitating and establishing the NT Postgraduate Medical Council and early survey events conducted in the NT where PMCQ offered and provided an independent surveyor. PMCQ also had membership on the NT Council where their advice and guidance was valued; they provided an advisory role on the NTPMC Accreditation Committee up until they ceased to be the accrediting authority for QLD. Since our initial establishment as NTPMC and now with the transition to METC with a wider brief it has been most important to maintain and grow synergies with some of the other bigger Intern training providers and accreditation authorities, and the Executive Officer regularly is in contact with the other PMCs or equivalents. METC has built and continues to build a strong relationship with the NT Medical Program. The NT Medical Program has been established to ‘grow our own’ medical practitioners with a particular focus on increasing the number of Indigenous doctors coming through this program and staying in the NT. This program has been made possible through a funding partnership between the NT Government along with Flinders University SA and the Federal DoH. METC is now working with the Associate Dean and program staff of the NTMP on many levels regarding the graduates that saw the first cohort graduate in 2015 and commence their two year bonded employment in the NT health services (which ceases end of 2016). The Director of METC is a member of the NTMP Governance committee that meets quarterly to discuss the programs curriculum, placements and other course teaching requirements. It is a future plan for METC to increase its interaction with specialist colleges to ensure an effective integration of the medical education and training continuum within NT.

Before the NTPMC was established and for the first NTPMC coordinated survey event conducted in October 2008 the NSW Institute of Medical Education and Training (IMET) an earlier title of Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) provided a joint accreditation service using the IMET Intern Accreditation Standards and IMET provided a trained surveyor to lead the NT survey team.

- 5.4 The intern training accreditation authority works within overarching national and international structures of quality assurance/accreditation.

The Postgraduate Medical Council Queensland (PMCQ) Accreditation Standards are the foundation of the NT Intern Accreditation system. The PMCQ in 2008/2009 offered all of their policies, processes, governance frameworks to the NTPMC as a basis to establish the PMC in the NT. The Executive Officer spent a week with PMCQ in the early months of establishment and contacted staff at PMCQ as necessary as NTPMC developed the NT accreditation system. NTPMC took confidence from the PMCQ model and methodologies as PMCQ had not long completed a full review of their system which included a global search of other international accreditation systems for comparison. The PMCQ (along with other PMCs at that time) had been instrumental in participating and informing the National Prevocational Medical Accreditation Framework (PMAF) which was one of the documents that contributed the National Accreditation Standards for Accrediting Authorities. As a result of NTPMC using the framework of PMCQs accreditation system as the foundation of the NT Accreditation System the progression to meeting the new National Intern Accrediting Authority standards was less challenging as much of the necessary documentation was either in place or being put in place. As a result any gaps found were easily resolved. In 2014 NTPMC commenced a review and rewrite of its accreditation standards and system to include all prevocational doctors into the system documents to enable NTPMC to accredit PGY2 as well as Intern (PGY1) places and training programs. A working party was formed using representatives from