Abstract
DEAR SIR,
I wish to add my voice to the wide-spread discontent with MOPS, and the intention to make participation in this programme compulsory from next year. I fully support the comments of Drs Lancaster and Bell in the September 2002 issue of Australasian Psychiatry. 1 , 2
I participated in pilot programmes for MOPS, including practice visits and patient and referrer satisfaction surveys. I then participated in a focus group discussion on the programme held at the NSW branch headquarters. I raised my concerns that the programme as formulated did nothing to address substandard performance by colleagues, and received the illuminating reply that MOPS was concerned with maintaining practice standards, not with maintaining competence. The leader of the group who should perhaps remain unnamed, seemed to understand a distinction between these terms that eluded me. He claimed that no one as yet has established how competence should be maintained. If competence is not being maintained and practice standards remain undefined, what is the value of this programme?
I object to the time and effort required of psychiatrists in private practice to complete this programme, whereas colleagues in public practice need merely to tick the boxes of activities that form part of their daily paid work. I have yet to see any evidence that psychiatrists in public practice are thereby more competent than myself or private practice colleagues.