In addition to the newly elected and co-opted anaesthetists in training on College Council there are a number of other individuals who, through their roles within the College, work directly on behalf of anaesthetists in training.
Pain Medicine has now reached a milestone, and for the first time ever doctors trained in specialist pain medicine will be able to have this recognised by the GMC. The credential curriculum is now approved by the GMC and has been developed to take into account the different specialty backgrounds that doctors may come from, providing detailed information for both trainers and trainees alike. Credentialing will be integrated into the CCT curriculum for anaesthetics but will also open the route of training in other specialties.
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The Perioperative Allergy Network (PAN) was set up under the joint auspices of the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI), the British Society for Immunology Clinical Immunology Professional Network (CIPN), and the Association of Anaesthetists. It represents a formal collaboration between UK anaesthetists, allergists and immunologists with an interest in perioperative hypersensitivity and is supported by the Royal Colleges of Anaesthetists, Pathologists and Physicians. It is affiliated with the International Suspected Perioperative Allergic Reactions Group (ISPAR).
Following the murder of George Floyd in the United States in 2020, which moved and touched so many individuals and organisations across the world, the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign has acted as a catalyst for positive action and renewed debate about how best to address systemic racism in our society and issues that affect the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
During this time the College published its own statement alongside the Faculty of Pain Medicine and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine; this was welcomed by members, staff and the public.
In my last update, I mentioned that the College has been addressing some financial challenges.
We are committed through our current five-year plan to manage the College’s resources with care, and to ‘ensure the College is resourced and equipped to carry out its strategy: now and in the future’. One of our core values is being open and responsive, and in that spirit I am keen to share with you our current financial position, and what we are doing to improve it.
The College acknowledged that there was not much in the way of information to support these patients nor the anaesthetists looking after them, and agreed that this gap needed to be addressed given the relatively high occurrence of the condition in the UK. Current reports estimate that there are 250,000 people living with ME/CFS at any one time in the UK, but this is likely to be a gross underestimate as traditionally it is poorly diagnosed, and many Long COVID patients fulfil ME/CFS diagnostic criteria. The most recent ONS survey reports 1.7 million people in the UK living with Long COVID.
This was new territory for the College, as producing information without a comprehensive body of evidence for such a poorly understood medical condition was something we had never done before.
Jenny was particularly interested in how Ann’s own considerable professional experience had influenced her work as a patient representative. Before retiring, Ann was an associate dean with NHS Education for Scotland, having previously been a consultant/senior lecturer in restorative dentistry and vice-dean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
While we continue to share some services with the RCoA (most obviously exams administration and communications services) we need to expand the clinical and secretariat teams to continue to deliver and grow the functions expected of the future UK College of ICM.
All outputs from the FICM Board and its committees are delivered by volunteer clinicians, many with busy clinical roles or still in ICM training. Likewise, our secretariat team although small is high calibre and punches above its weight. If we are to realise the future UK College of ICM, we’ll need to push further and deeper, doing more with more resources. In preparation for that we’ve made changes to the exams team and also embarked on a series of member engagements.
Furthermore, many intensive care units around the UK rely on the knowledge, skills and experience brought by our anaesthetic colleagues in order to provide high-quality, patient-focused care.
Consequently, anaesthetists will continue to hold a critical role in training the intensivists of the future.
For those who may not know, CPOC is a cross-specialty initiative made up of 11 partners dedicated to the advancement and development of perioperative care. Perioperative care means the whole patient journey from the GP’s, to when a patient returns home after surgery. Our vision is to improve the health of people of all ages, at all stages of their surgical journey, by promoting the highest standards of perioperative care.
Improving perioperative care will make a difference to a lot of things important to patients, including getting fitter before surgery, better pain management (getting mobile quicker), recovery (getting out of hospital faster), reducing anxiety felt, and putting the patient at the centre of all decisions about treatment.
