The impact of self-assessment and surveyor assessment on site visit performance under the National General Practice Accreditation scheme

Abstract

Objective There is a need to undertake more proactive and in-depth analyses of general practice accreditation processes. Two areas that have been highlighted as areas of potential inconsistency are the self-assessment and surveyor assessment of indicators. Methods The data encompass 757 accreditation visits made between December 2020 and July 2022. A mixed-effect multilevel logistic regression model determined the association between attempt of the self-assessment and indicator conformity from the surveyor assessment. Furthermore, we present a contrast of the rate of indicator conformity between surveyors as an approximation of the inter-assessor consistency from the site visit. Results Two hundred and seventy-seven (37%) practices did not attempt or accurately report conformity to any indicators at the self-assessment. Association between attempting the self-assessment and the rate of indicator non-conformity at the site visit failed to reach statistical significance (OR = 0.90 [95% CI = 1.14–0.72], P = 0.28). A small number of surveyors (N = 9/34) demonstrated statistically significant differences in the rate of indicator conformity compared to the mean of all surveyors. Conclusions Attempt of the self-assessment did not predict indicator conformity at the site visit overall. Appropriate levels of consistency of indicator assessment between surveyors at the site visit were identified.