White Paper Supporting Consultations

As you know, we started our consultation on the Government’s White Paper last week. I want to thank those of you already taking part. Your responses are invaluable, and will enable us to formulate our response to the Department of Health.

The RCGP is a UK College, indeed we are an international College, and although the White Paper legislation will affect only England, I really do encourage members from around the UK and beyond to consider the implications and to take part. Only this week I had some very helpful feedback from a member in Europe, who was keen to be kept informed as developments unfold. Your thoughts, concerns and examples of good practice, wherever you are in the UK are always gratefully received and fully considered.

Some of you have expressed concern about the potential impact on our most vulnerable patients, and I want to draw your attention to an initial equalities impact statement on the DH website:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_117350.pdf

It’s been a huge week media wise, particularly surrounding the King’s Fund’s call for GPs to take a more active role in maternity care. The findings were disappointing, but confirmed what we already knew - that the role of GPs in maternity care has dramatically declined over the past 30 years to the extent that there are some areas of the country where it is now practically non-existent.

I said that the best way forward is to establish effective maternity care teams in which GPs play a key role along with midwives, consultants and other healthcare professionals. This would obviously require significant changes to the way in which maternity care services are currently organised and we are already working with our colleagues at the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to see how we can deliver more effective and seamless care for pregnant women and their babies.

Today was the first meeting at the Department of Health looking at the new Public Health White Paper for England – indeed it was the first time anyone from the College had been invited to a meeting to discuss public health – usually we have to remind people that GPs have a key role in public health alongside our specialist colleagues.

There are big opportunities to take forward the public’s health agenda now that a new public health service is being set up and our public health colleagues will be based in local Government, but I fear that if we’re not careful commissioning groups will feel that public health is being covered by someone else.

What I said to our colleagues today was that public health and population health is important to GPs, and must then also be important for commissioning groups. I guess the Health and Wellbeing Board will be very important. There is some brilliant work going on around the country being led by GPs, an excellent example being the Big Bolton Health Check, which has made a real difference to patients’ lives.

To that end, I’ve been trying to raise the profile of public and population health with GPs and the important role of GPs with others, and a series of talks and a number of articles. You might be interested to know that in the Observer on Sunday there will be an opinion piece in which I will talk more about the importance of individuals taking more responsibility for their health and for the health of their children.

I hope you will be interested in an article I have co-written with Professor Roger Boyle, the DH clinical director for cardiovascular disease, for the BJGP, called ‘cardiovascular disease beyond the QOF’. You can read some of Pulse Magazine’s coverage of the article at:

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=19&storycode=4125548

Here at Princes Gate, most of our kit is now boxed up and the rooms are emptying in advance of our move at the end of next week. The team here are developing a comprehensive communications plan to keep you fully informed on how to get in touch with us, and how to make arrangements for accommodation.

Orchestrating the move has been a mammoth exercise, and I do hope that the move will result in communication inside the college improving; it’s been very difficult working in poor accommodation, spread across four sites. I’ll certainly miss staying in the college; things really won’t be the same, but I think it’s for the best and is part of the story of the College’s growth.

Our future address will be: 1 Bow Churchyard, London EC4M 9DQ. The new switchboard number will be 020 3188 7400 and our new fax number will be 020 3188 7401.

As always, I value your opinions and feedback enormously – wherever you live and work – and I urge you to get in touch if you have any comments or questions for me.