Dear RCEM membership,
I’m going to be providing a periodic update to you using the Blog facility in 2023 which I hope you will find of interest. Do let me know if you have any topics or issues you would like me to cover in future editions.
This is the first newsletter from the Yorkshire & Humber board that is being shared out of region, so I thought I would say a bit about us here in ‘God’s own county’. We have a population size similar to that of Scotland, and cover coastal, rural and urban populations.
December and January have been particularly torrid. An early and unexpected Group A Strep outbreak resulted in huge pressure on paediatric areas, and then the predictable ‘twindemic’ of flu and COVID resulted in extraordinary exit block and hideous crowding.
It’s a pleasure to begin this crucial means of communication, with this post for Members and Fellows in Scotland but no doubt of interest (hopefully) to all members, as we progress through the most difficult winter our young(ish) specialty has faced. Ensuring you all know what we are doing to advocate for better, safer, and more
December is traditionally a time of celebration and I hope you are all able to get some time off with your families during the holiday period. Like many of you, I will be ‘celebrating’ Christmas by working overnight on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, our patients’ illnesses and injuries are no respecter of the calendar. Our break rooms will be full of dubious looking treats. It is important that this time is adequately rewarded in turn, and I will spend the following week with my parents, though the turkey may not be as nice.
I travelled up to Birmingham for the Conservative Party Conference and attended a health event led by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The event was in a small hot, noisy room overfull of people lobbying anyone in government, a good analogy for emergency care. Finished with nice dinner with Luke and Pooja
Adrian Boyle, EM Consultant in Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge, succeeded Katherine Hender-son as President of RCEM at the AGM held on 4 October 2022 during the Scientific Conference in Belfast.
The EMJ Supplement caught up with him last month to ask about his hopes and aspirations for the next three years. We also found out about rowing and Tilly the dog.
This will be my last EMJ supplement as President. I have been reflecting on the three years and on the questions, I get asked regularly; have I enjoyed my time, and will I miss it? It is a huge honour to be elected President of your College and the role is unendingly interesting. I have had the opportunity to meeting a wide variety of people and have tried to influence for good.
The past months have seen significant work here at the College to address the issues that led to the examinations results error for the March diet of the FRCEM SBA. Before explaining what we have been doing, I think some context is useful, at the risk of recapping what we have already said before.
In this blog RCEM Vice President, Lisa Munro-Davies looks at the the history of Advanced Clinical Practice, the latest national developments, and what the future might hold.