The Royal College of Physicians, in partnership with the UK’s medical specialty societies, has launched the full version of Medical Care, its first ever web-based planning resource for medical specialties.
The Medical Care website will help those involved in the planning and provision of services get a clearer picture of the specialty services that need to be in place to provide great patient care.
Through Medical Care, doctors will be able to access support for:
- designing services, including a short description of the specialty and the patient population, and a summary of the workforce needs to support service provision
- developing physicians, including information on the education, training and continuing professional development required for that specialty
- exploring the latest ideas on how to develop physicians and teams in areas such as quality improvement and medical leadership.
Previously available as a beta test site, the final resource now includes 27 physician specialties. The site also contains chapters on cross-cutting themes such as:
- patient-centred care
- medical workforce
- health promotion
- patient safety.
The site will be dynamic and include new content as this becomes available.
Dr Nina Dutta, an RCP clinical fellow and lead for the project, said:
Medical Care provides comprehensive guidance on designing high-quality services. It is written by experts from each of the specialties themselves and reviewed by a specialist panel that includes practising physicians, service directors, commissioners and patient representatives. It provide links to the latest guidance, resources and evidence.
We welcome feedback at medicalcare@rcplondon.ac.uk.
Professor David Oliver, RCP clinical vice president, said:
Thanks to patient involvement in designing the resource, we have expanded the focus on the outcomes that matter to patients. We have also included a focus on population medicine, services beyond the walls of a hospital and wider system leadership.
It is useful for people involved in the planning and provision of medical services, including medical directors, clinical leads, physicians and commissioners of services. The sections on developing physicians will be useful for trainees wishing to enter specialty training as they contain information about training pathways, quality improvement and research.
