Iona Price, chair of the RCP’s Falls and Fragility Fractures Audit Programme (FFFAP) Patient Panel, reflects on why she joined the RCP’s Patient and Carer Network. 

Response by Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians.

The three Royal Colleges of Physicians are calling on the consultant workforce to complete our Retirements 2019 survey.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have launched a new strategy on patient safety today. The strategy aims to be the ‘golden thread’ running through healthcare and sets out what the NHS will do to continuously improve patient safety.

Care of patients with chronic lung conditions is improving but there are still significant deficiencies that need addressing, according to the world’s largest clinical audit of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients, run by the RCP.

Welsh hospitals are understaffed and overstretched. Over two-thirds of trainees report regular and frequent rota gaps, almost one-third of advertised consultant posts go unfilled, and absence due to sickness is rising.

The RCP is calling for more research to be conducted in NHS trusts to support high quality patient care, with ‘protected time’ for doctors, nurses and other clinicians to undertake research projects. 

RCP president Professor Andrew Goddard has asked that the word burnout in relation to doctors be stopped as it implies a failure of the individual. 

The Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK is calling on the consultant workforce to complete our Ward Rounds 2019 survey, which is used to influence government, support workforce planning, and contribute to national health policy.

The RCP is taking the unusual step of writing to all MPs asking them to vote against the UK leaving the EU without an agreement, to protect patients.