Our enablers

Membership engagement

• We welcomed over 3,750 new members and launched a more inclusive fellowship proposal process.
• Over 4,000 members responded to our 2022 surveys.
• We published the 2021 census report focusing on consultants, SAS doctors and higher specialty trainees, as well as a set of toolkits.
• We recruited a new clinical adviser on flexible working.
• Our second annual SAS week celebrated the contribution of those in specialty and associate specialist doctor roles, while regular CT/ACT and regional representative meetings enabled us to engage with trainees.
• We held bespoke membership engagement events for members and fellows in Myanmar, Uganda, Kochi, Iraq, Egypt, Chennai, Chicago, Melbourne and Jordan, and recruited eight new international advisers.
• Our members made excellent use of our workshops, e-learning programmes and library in 2022.

Working with patients

• We involved patients in the development of all our programmes to ensure we are gaining the vital input of ‘experts by experience’.
• Our Patient and Carer Network (PCN) contributed invaluable expertise to a large number of RCP projects throughout 2022, with representation on over 20 RCP boards and committees.
• We involved lay reviewers on the governance group for invited reviews as well as improving the patient voice in the reviews undertaken throughout the year.

Diversity and inclusion

• Equality and diversity were a driving force in our policy work, particularly on health inequalities and supporting the widening of participation in medicine as a career.
• We implemented a new fellowship proposal process to make it fairer and more transparent.
• New visual displays, policies for diversity in comms and events, and a rich diversity of voices featured in our member magazine Commentary exemplified our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
• We worked to increase diversity in our clinical teaching faculty and are including diversity and inclusion in all of our educational programmes.
• Internationally, we launched a pilot of our Global Women Leaders Programme in Pakistan and supported the growth of the RCP Iraq Network.
• Through Federation we continued to explore the use of diversity and inclusion data to help support training recovery.

Governance and stakeholder engagement

• We returned to in-person meetings for some key Council and committee meetings and held our AGM and College Day as hybrid events.
• We were delighted to return to hosting in-person membership and fellowship ceremonies, giving physicians the opportunity to celebrate their significant achievement in style.
• To support staff to connect and collaborate, we launched a new internal communications strategy and redeveloped our intranet.
• The RCP and FPA Code of Conduct processes were improved to help manage more complex cases.
• We recruited four new censors and appointed a new Linacre fellow. We held over 60 stakeholder meetings, and our president delivered a programme of visits to trusts, engaging with staff in hospitals and hearing their concerns.
• We upgraded our IT servers and decommissioned old equipment, reducing operational risk and making savings of over £10k per year.
• To improve IT security, we introduced multi-factor authentication across the RCP.

Sustainability

• The Spine, our new building in Liverpool, was awarded BREEAM Excellent certification in 2022, recognising the quality, performance and sustainable credentials of the building.
• With most staff now working in a hybrid way post pandemic, we reviewed the use of office space and drew up plans to reduce our utility and maintenance costs.
• We moved to a completely digital election process for our president and senior officer roles. Similarly, our conference and event materials are now all online-only.
• Our JAG accreditation scheme introduced an aspirational standard in support of green endoscopy.
• Spaces at The Spine won ‘gold’ for venue sustainability at the 2022 Conference and Events Awards.