VP’s Membership & Engagement Review

Salwa Malik, RCEM Vice-President for Membership, April 13, 2023

I am rather excited to be writing my first blog as Vice President for Membership at RCEM. Having been in post since October 2022, there has been a lot to take in and learn, but far more to be getting on with.

I cannot start without thanking Carole Gavin, my predecessor, for her tireless work and commitment to her role and this should be recognised. She got the ball rolling fast to re-introduce the Member by Election category – I’m delighted to say that this is now officially being offered to those doctors who do not follow the traditional training route/career pathway. This makes it far more inclusive and equitable for this cohort. It appropriately recognises the experience and contribution of doctors not in training (SAS and equivalent currently approx. 20% of the membership) and ACP members (currently 10% of the membership) through the award of this membership category which provides full membership status with the inclusion of voting rights.

The first thing I have learnt – this RCEM team is amazing. The amount of work that is actually done behind the scenes is incredible – I’m not sure members actually are aware of this enough! Nothing is too much for them to handle, all queries are followed up diligently and essentially, they are the reason why I am really enjoying this role.

Over 2022, we have seen the Membership Service Team develop and grow to really provide effective customer service to our members by continuing to engage with queries via the LiveChat service. They are dealing with an average of 118 calls and 100 website assists every week, and are managing to streamline and sort problems out in a timely and appropriate manner. Investing in having more college staff to provide this service has been critical to challenge the high volume demand of enquiries. It, in a way, reflects what should be happening in the NHS! More staff, share the workload and burden, treat patients in an effective and efficient way, get good outcomes and satisfaction.

By the end of the year, we saw an increase in membership by 4.6% to 11,507 – the largest increase was for Associate member (overseas) which increased by 44%, demonstrating our heavy demand internationally, but also Fellow by Examination saw a fantastic increase of 11%.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet with the new and old committee chairs from EMTA, EMSAS, ACP Forum, EDI and WEMSIG (now GEC) – it has been good to learn about their vision, goals and how they are all working together and anything I can do to support. Here is a brief summary about what is going on:

• ACP Forum are developing a new ACP curriculum link with the new medical curriculum, progressing on post-credential competencies and professional development, delivering education zooms with ACP members every other month, continue to be involved in the credentialing panel, encourage more ACP presence on RCEM committees, delivering the ACP newsletter every other month and re-designing of the ACP website
• EMSAS has seen a big upgrade with a new name, new logo, website design over the last 2 years. This year has been about rebuilding the network through appointing new representatives regionally, having dedicated RCEM email addresses for correspondence, writing a quarterly EMSAS newsletter and revolutionise future annual conferences to improve access to all
• EMTA ran a very successful and well attended conference and published the results of the annual EMTA survey, which highlighted concerns in lack of minors exposure, poor exposure to ultrasound supervision, but above all, trainees are still experiencing bullying and undermining from within the ED and women are still more likely to be disadvantaged by being less than full time for caring responsibilities and getting less exposure to training opportunities and more resistance to referrals. The vision now is to think of ways to address/highlight these issues through RespectED campaign, promote wellbeing and work more closely with the college to develop a stronger relationship
• There has been a re-name of the Women in Emergency Medicine Special Interest Group to Gender Equality Committee, who have emphasised the #countmeincampaign, reviewed policies and guidance from a gender equity point of view, engaged and supported the Surviving in Scrubs campaign highlighting sexism at work and are developing non-fatal strangulation guidance
• The EDI committee are launching an EDI calendar, improve accessibility of college events, encouraging further EDI representation throughout the college, ensuring that there is better “visibility”, collecting more demographic data from members and college staff and launching the EDI website.
• Sustainable Working Practices Group have been vital in progressing with the RCEM wellbeing app, working with 87% team to analyse results, focusing on overall mental health and wellbeing differences between the job roles in EM and are currently working on providing support to the members through tailored assessments, feedback and expert curated content which will help with self-awareness and building of confidence. They are working well with the ACP forum and has representation on the EDI and GEC committees too. It has also created a new special interest group – looking at the older emergency clinicians, creating study days and e-learning content.

When I started, I was also keen to get involved with Policy as a side hustle – through contacts of contacts (sounding like the Godfather here…), I managed to secure a 60 minute meeting with Department of Health and Social Care advisors for Urgent and Emergency Care and other areas too. There were around 90 people on the call who wanted to know about how the patient flows through the ED and so, I presented to them the “State of Play” and dubbed it ABCEDFG  – the ABC of Emergency Departments for Government; a sort of tongue in cheek salute to Therese Coffey. I showed pictures of patients in ED corridors and explained how the exit block affected flow. Literally from scratch. It was extremely well received and from that, the monthly meetings with DHSC were born with RCEM. This was huge – actually talking to the people who write the policies. Another way in. This complimented all the work that RCEM had been doing to date. Here, at these closed meetings, we could set about giving our priorities that need urgent addressing e.g. publishing the 12 hour time from arrival data. Giving them the heart-breaking update on state of affairs in early January (“Remember I showed you those pictures…can you imagine it worse?”), combined with the team’s intense work with the media and conversations with NHS England etc, lead to the Emergency Care Summit at Number 10. Our next imminent meeting will be focused on the UEC workforce plan (as in, tell us exactly what this is) and mental health in the ED – a growing and terrible problem which is consistently ignored on any agenda. Working with the media as well during this time period has helped support our cause immensely – thanks to our brilliant communications team who have set them all up – from talking to journalists on news articles, being interviewed on podcasts, BBC, Sky News, Radio shows. Journalists give you very little notice, so the fact that between us we have taken on almost every opportunity for an interview is brilliant. Last week, we held an Emergency Care Crisis Summit at House of Lords and we got to mingle with journalists and MPs, Lords, Baronesses etc to ensure our message was heard loud and clear.

We have still a lot to do when it comes to improving membership engagement and their understanding of the college and what they do (maybe through vlogs, video graphics on social media, podcasts etc), supporting those who are finding these financial times very tough, smooth out the finances of competing FRCEM but still being in training which was overlooked before (RCEM were focused on improving access to exams to reduce burden and stress for the final year of training, but matching it with membership fees wasn’t appreciated at the time). I would again urge those who find an annual payment for membership difficult to pay to switch to monthly direct debit, which is much more digestible and to please claim back tax on the RCEM fees and any exams fees too – it comes to quite a lot of money back!

If you’re still reading this, that’s impressive. I now have to go back to finishing work admin, preparing dinner for my 3 year old and for a household that have been fasting all day and have some sort of nap prior to my nightshift (not going to happen) and then tackle the heaving corridor of patients in the ED. Wish me luck.