He famously declared that he wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have him as a member. We’ve been thinking about how we can attract people who might not usually think that ‘our club’ is for them.

The challenges we face in reaching a wide range of patients are common to the ones many of you experience when engaging with patients locally. Perhaps you were trying to audit or redesign services, or prepare or revise patient information. Some of the responses to these challenges are also common.

PatientsVoices@RCoA is a group of volunteers who help the College improve the delivery of safe, more effective, patient-centred care to enhance patients’ experience of anaesthesia and perioperative care. It’s vital for us to understand and represent the views of diverse communities, as we live in one of the most multicultural countries in the world.