RCP president professor Andrew Goddard has recorded his personal reflections on the first six months of the pandemic in a special RCP Medicine podcast.
You can listen here to his account of dealing with the biggest health challenge in decades.
As well as talking about the impact on him personally, and finding many positives, Professor Goddard looks at how the reputation of the RCP has been enhanced by the role it has played throughout the pandemic. He also discusses how COVID-19 has led to a massive change in health services being effected very quickly: because it had to be.
Professor Goddard points to the report the RCP published in 2018, Outpatients: the future – adding value through sustainability, that recommended 30% of outpatient consultations should be virtual. Following its publication, many dismissed this target as ridiculous, yet it was achieved, and surpassed, within a month of COVID-19 happening.
“We may come to see this as a watershed moment in health,” says Professor Goddard. The RCP has played an important part in leading and shaping the conversation about resetting the NHS when we emerge from the pandemic.
You will find more on this by visiting the RCP’s Rebuilding the NHS page, with links to a range of content, including:
· Rebuilding the NHS - Resetting outpatient services for the 21st century in the context of COVID-19 (with the Royal College of GPs)
· Improving medical pathways for acute cure (with the Royal College of Emergency of Medicine, the Royal College of GPs and the Society for Acute Medicine)
· Returning the NHS to an even keel
· Priorities for future COVID-19 wave planning
The RCP’s journals have also been part of this conversation. Follow this link to read relevant articles.
RCP Player has a Reset of services tab, in which RCP registrar Professor Donal O’Donoghue presents a huge range of videos looking at what he describes as both the greatest challenge ever to face the NHS but also a once in lifetime opportunity. Videos include one from Professor Stephen Powis, National Medical Director of NHS England, and specialty focus updates. You may also want to watch:
How will technology help a different future for physician led care? with Dr Wajid Hussain
What could outpatients look like? with Dr Toby Hillman and Miss Jennifer Isherwood
What could inpatient care look like? with Dr Seema Shrivastava
Rapidly establishing video communication in critical care during COVID-19
You will find all RCP Medicine, RCP Garden and RCP Podopia podcasts on Buzzsprout.