Friday, 2 December 2011
It’s felt like a hectic week, with a great
many meetings. But the same themes have emerged from many of
them.
In England, most things seem to be waiting on
the publication of the second stage Future Forum report, andmany
other important issues appear to be on hold. This is frustrating
for clinicians and service providers alike. At the Academy of
Medical Royal Colleges Council Meeting on Tuesday, we discussed an
interesting document about cost-effectiveness of consultant
delivered care. As many of you will know, the Academy has been
undertaking a study into the evidence for beneifts to patients of
secondary medical healthcare in the NHS being delivered primarily
by consultants. There is evidence of this, but obviously not to the
level of RCT trials.
The Policy Unit here at the College has also
been looking at the specific literature with regard to
consultant-delivered care by psychiatrists. I have just had a
quick look and, at least from the abstracts, there does seem to be,
if anything, stronger evidence of the cost-benefit of consultant
delivered care by psychiatrists. We are now going to look at the
full papers in more dept.
The other major concern at both the Academy and the joint
meeting between the Academy and the BMA, was a growing belief
across our systems that there is a movement to have the delivery of
postgraduate medical training undertaken by universities. This
would thus diminish the role of the Royal Medical Colleges, and is
something we need to take very seriously.
It was great to be at the Officers meeting
yesterday afternoon with all the new Officers now in
place. I particularly welcome Dr Wendy Burn as the new
Dean.
Yesterday morning, together with Lucy Thorpe,
our Head of Policy, I had a really constructive meeting with the
Chief Executive of Turning Point,
Lord Victor Adebowale. The meeting allowed us to discuss some
issues from their key areas of work, i.e. providing services for
users of services across the fields of forensic learning
disability, and in particular addiction services. I hope to be
taking some joint work forward with Victor Adebowale, who is of
course an Honorary Fellow of our College.
And of course it's also that time of year
again. This weekend, I'm due to take a trip into the loft at home
to look at the state of the Christmas decorations!
Sue
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