The Royal College of Physicians, in partnership with the UK’s medical specialty societies, has launched Medical Care, its first ever web-based planning resource for medical specialties.
Building on the previous success of Consultant physicians working with patients, the new website - www.medicalcare.rcp.ac.uk - has been designed to 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 content on overarching themes around service design, such as person-centred care, patient safety and integrated care
- browse through specialty-specific sections and learn how to measure, deliver and maintain high-quality services
- explore the latest ideas on how to develop physicians and teams in areas such as quality improvement and medical leadership.
On the launch of the website Dr Anita Donley the RCP’s clinical vice president said:
The release of this resource will provide physicians with the tools they need to design up to date, high quality, patient-centred services. It will provide those within the profession to develop the leaders of the future whilst also setting out the needs within each specialty for continuing professional development and training.
The NHS is facing up to its most profound financial challenge, with constrained budgets and ever rising demand on its services. As physicians we need to keep thinking of innovative ways we can work day to day and tools such as this will help in that endeavour.
The initial version of the site is being made available as a beta version and will include 19 specialties. This will allow for full testing of the resource by planners and stakeholders before the final version is launched in December, when the number of specialties will rise to 28.