British Cycling has commissioned the English Institute for Sport’s (EIS) director of medical services, Dr Rod Jaques, to conduct an independent review of its medical and physiotherapy teams’ operational practice and its alignment with the highest standards of UK professional conduct and procedures.
UK Anti-Doping’s recent investigation regarding the anti-doping procedures followed by British Cycling suggested failings in medicine ordering, management, administration and disposal as well as the quality, consistency and completeness of medical records.
The review will involve a series of confidential, face-to-face interviews and an appraisal of current processes, policies and medical resourcing, management and reporting. It will identify areas for improvement and make recommendations on how British Cycling can develop and implement best practice systems in its medical set-up.
The review is already underway and Dr Jaques is expected to report his findings to British Cycling’s executive leadership team in June 2017.
Commenting on the review, British Cycling’s people director, Michael Chivers, said:
“We are committed to providing the highest standards of medical support - that’s why we’ve commissioned an external expert to scrutinise our existing processes and procedures and to make a series of recommendations on how we can improve.
“We will not pre judge what the recommendations might be, but we are keen to bring parity between performance and health and welfare, and to ensure we reduce the potential for conflicts of interest between a team’s medical staff and its coaches.”
British Cycling’s performance director, Stephen Park, added:
“This is about balancing high performance with high support in terms of the health and welfare services we provide our athletes. I’ve been impressed by much of the work that the team is doing, and in commissioning this review the intent is to strive for continual improvement to ensure that we are operating to the highest standard.”
Dr Rod Jaques is the director of medical services at the EIS. He has been involved in sports medicine for more than 25 years and is the immediate past president of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) having served a three year term as president from 2012-15.
