In a keynote speech to the RCP’s annual conference, Medicine 2025, Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, described the leading role physicians can play in the secondary prevention of ill-health while Karin Smyth MP, minister of state for secondary care, thanked RCP fellows and members for ‘holding the NHS together’.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has this week welcomed over 400 people through the doors of its Regent’s Park home in London for its 2-day annual conference, Medicine 2025. A further 1100 people from more than 20 countries have registered to join the conference online.
In his opening address to conference, Professor Chris Whitty spoke about the crucial importance of reducing avoidable illness. He argued that physicians should play a key role in the secondary prevention of ill-health – getting older doesn’t have to mean getting sicker – and explained that delaying the onset of disease should be a central focus for physicians and the NHS, saying ‘as individual clinicians we do need to take this seriously. It’s really important that we put scientific evidence out there to society [and] help patients to reduce their individual risk.’ He praised the RCP for its advocacy work on tobacco and air quality, describing the unique role of doctors as a trusted voice.
This year’s theme is healthcare transformation. With over 40 plenary sessions and hands-on workshops across two days, delegates can also view content on demand until September 2025. ‘I’m absolutely delighted that almost half of our conference delegates are resident doctors,’ said RCP president Dr Mumtaz Patel. ‘It’s been wonderful to see so many new faces at the college and I’ve loved meeting with physicians from across our global membership. I particularly enjoyed helping to judge the poster competition and learning about the exciting achievements of our early career colleagues.’
2025 is the ‘year of next gen’ at the RCP. Resident doctors have been involved throughout the planning, design and chairing of Med25: our dedicated next generation panel session explored the impact of rotational training and the future of UK postgraduate medical training. Presenting the results of the recent national next generation survey of resident doctors, Dr Hatty Douthwaite, RCP Resident Doctor Committee deputy chair, told conference that ‘resident doctors today are the clinical leaders of tomorrow. Reform of medical training is no longer optional – it’s essential.’
Discussing the consistently impressive results of Royal United Hospital Bath in the GMC national training survey, Dr Kapil Agarwal argued that high quality supervision is relies on longer-term supervisor-resident relationships, more regular and meaningful feedback, maintaining accessibility, and investing in supervisor training and support.
Dr Arash Fattahi presented his Teale prize winning essay on whether we should end rotational training, explaining that while rotations provide valuable breadth of knowledge early in doctors’ careers, they can become increasingly disruptive over time. ‘As we progress in our careers,’ he told conference, ‘continuity of care suffers with rotational training – patients may see a different doctor every visit, and impactful quality improvement projects often die when registrars rotate away.’
Karin Smyth MP, minister of state for secondary care acknowledged the pressure facing doctors and the NHS. She confirmed the 10 Year Health Plan would be published in summer 2025, aiming to shift care from hospitals into communities, modernise the NHS with the shift from analogue to digital, and build a health service focused on prevention, not cure, saying ‘we will only succeed if this is a team effort – if we get this right, we will be the generation that took the NHS from its worst crisis and made it fit for the future.’
The RCP has campaigned for years for a cross-government strategy to reduce health inequalities. In her speech, the minister emphasised the importance of tackling the broader social determinants of health, like good quality jobs, housing, education, food and clean air, telling conference that ‘fixing broken Britain will require more than fixing a broken NHS.’ She also reaffirmed plans for a fair pay agreement for social care staff and the UK government’s commitment to a social care commission led by Baroness Louise Casey.
In a panel discussion chaired by the RCP special adviser on population health, Dr Chris Packham on day two, Professor Sir Michael Marmot, director, UCL Institute of Health Equity told conference that one million excess deaths were linked to deprivation between 2009 and 2020. He was joined by Sally Warren, DHSC director general of the 10 Year Health Plan.
Reflecting on a busy week, Dr Mumtaz Patel told fellows and members, ‘all in all, it was a fantastic 2 days, and I look forward to welcoming you all again at Med+ later this year.'