Rapid Responses to:
|
|
Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
-
![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
We've Quit the Royal College
- RT Green (on behalf) (6 April 2007)
-
If we don't do it.....
- Neville W Goodman (11 April 2007)
-
Response to Body Politic. Article by Nigel Hawkes
- Carol M Black (25 April 2007)
|
|
|||
|
RT Green (on behalf), SpR E1 1BB
Send response to journal:
|
Nigel Hawkes is to be commended on his clear reporting and insightful observations. We have long suspected that the Royal Colleges Heads have been out of touch with the true challenges facing medical training in this country and events over the last few weeks have confirmed these suspicions. Many of my colleagues have never been convinced of arguments put forth for massive reforms and which has always smelt like spin. Instead, many have pointed out glaring shortcomings - the lack of an evidence-base supporting such reforms, the inflexibility of the run- through system, the lack of work-force planning and delivering control to the central government in matters of professional training (hardly desirable after their recent display of meddling and lack of probity). As a result a number colleagues, myself inclusive, have suspended our paid membership of the Royal College of Physicians and will boycott College organised events. It is a shame paid up members appear to have so little influence over important College matters which seem to be the exclusive domain of a handful of power-brokers. Unfortunately medics are largely a compliant bunch, in any other organisation, heads would have rolled by now. If Nigel Hawkes would care to comment on this last point, we would be all ears. References: 1. http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2007/03/looking-after-johnny- foreigner.html 2. http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/news.asp?PR_id=344 Competing interests: None declared |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Neville W Goodman, Consultant Anaesthetist Southmead Hospital, Bristol, BS10 5NB
Send response to journal:
|
It is not surprising that the Royal Colleges are impotent. The MMC/MTAS debacle is probably their last chance, but my hopes are not high. As each succeeding "reform" of the NHS and medical training has come along, the response has been, "If we don't do it, they'll do it anyway, and do it worse." Thus the Royal Colleges have been led down into their side-alleys by the politicians. There have been a number of times in the last few years when the correct response should have been, "No! This is not good for medicine, not good for doctors, and not good for patients!" But the politicians, and a media complicit in the cry for accountability that they happily ignore for themselves, hold the whip hand. I suspect the Royal Colleges would have been sidelined anyway, their examinations rendered irrelevant by governmental decree - and supported by enough doctors happy to help out with whatever assessments were needed. Professor Raymond Tallis said it all in his book, "Hippocratic oaths". Competing interests: None declared |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Carol M Black, Chairman Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, 70 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8AX
Send response to journal:
|
Response to Body Politic. Article by Nigel Hawkes. The whole of the medical profession has been deeply affected by the catastrophic rollout of the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS). The Academy of Royal Colleges is acutely aware of the breadth and depth of distress that the flawed system has inflicted on both junior and senior doctors and as a consequence called for and obtained a review of the process. The Academy is committed to ensuring, with other stakeholders and professional bodies, that the process for the future is fair, transparent and fit for purpose. The reasons why the current process went so badly wrong are without doubt multi-factorial and complex. The forthcoming Independent Inquiry will approach such questions and provide answers. Lessons will be learned by all. Why the need to modernise medical careers? The approach to training in the past produced deep and varied experience for some doctors and was inherently flexible, for example, on choice of specialty. But it neglected the training needs and aspirations of many others. Training was less well structured, and trainees were often less well advised and supported, than is needed for service today. The Colleges’ purpose in supporting the basic principles of Modernisation of Medical Careers (MMC), with the flexibility initially envisaged and national standards for training, was to ensure the provision for all of better structured training than was available hitherto. There was no question of ‘complicity’ nor of mere defence of the Colleges’ existing examinations, which have been reviewed, and supplemented by tests of professional skill and aptitude, as a component of MMC. In his article headed ‘The royal colleges must up their game – or die’, Nigel Hawkes focuses on the role of the Royal Colleges in MMC and MTAS. On MTAS, it must be recorded that the Royal Colleges – as Hawkes allows - were permitted very little influence on its development. As to upping our game, the Colleges have over recent years developed new roles and responsibilities, have modernised their organisations, and have instigated new initiatives to advance medical practice in line with the continued development of healthcare reform. Such work has transformed the agenda of the Colleges into one of proactive engagement with policy makers, of innovation, and of providing patient-focussed healthcare delivery. The Academy, well placed to bring a unified medical professional view of issues that should be addressed, is developing a broad agenda that reflects continuing change in the nature and delivery of better health and healthcare, both generally in the UK and abroad, and in the context of the reformed NHS. The Colleges, either working individually or together through the Academy, are already influencing 21st century medicine, in a variety of alliances with other bodies – independent and statutory – that have interests and responsibilities in health. Examples are the highly acclaimed work on Medical Professionalism by the Royal College of Physicians, the development of Accreditation of Radiological Services currently being piloted by the Royal College of Radiologists, and the work currently being undertaken by the Academy on Reconfiguration of Acute Services. These projects and many others currently underway are all aimed to serve the wider public interest. Finally the Academy and the individual Colleges welcome their new and central role in helping implement a robust system of recertification or ‘revalidation’ of doctors. Such new roles and initiatives demonstrate that Colleges are championing change and helping to direct modern trends in the development of healthcare. Representing a living and very important profession, the Colleges are very much alive. Professor Dame Carol Black
Competing interests: None declared |
|||