This month, our vice president for Wales Dr Hilary Williams blogs about the Leng review, New consultants forum, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill and the Welsh Labour Party conference.
August beckons and as ever, a big welcome to our new Foundation doctor teams in Wales. It seems timely to share some words from our RCP regional advisers, who have reflected on the importance of advice passed down over the years from their own mentors. They remind us that despite the challenges in a medical career and regardless of our experience levels, caring for patients and making potentially life-changing decisions in consultation with their families is a privilege and expression of the trust placed in us all.
Win for Wales
Congratulations to the team at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board who won the Eric Watts award for patient engagement at the RCP’s 2025 Excellence in Patient Care Awards. Read more about this award and the other winners.
New consultants forum
A well trained and supported workforce is always our top priority in Wales. This month, Dr Ben Thomas and Dr Sam Rice joined our new consultant representative, Dr Dena Pitrola, for the joint Wales and Northern Ireland RCP New consultants forum. Sam and Ben provided a practical, real-world session on the importance of realistic job planning and shared tips on capturing small biographical details about new patients to help us remember key information about them and their lives.
Forum members shared ideas about what would help to reduce burnout and increase the recruitment and retention of doctors, from a more flexible approach to job planning to increased openness about our wellbeing. Medicine can be a challenging profession exposing us to and involving us in full range of human experiences. Forum members felt that being more open about this, as well as more effective peer support and mentorship, would bring lots of benefits to our profession.
I will follow up on job planning with our new chief medical officer team. It is vital that new ways of working, such as providing clinical support to patients and MDTs outside fixed sessions, are recognised and supported in our job plans.
Leng review
The independent review into the role of physician associates and anaesthesia associates has now been published. The review, led by Professor Gillian Leng, focuses on England but contains important findings applicable across the UK, including that postgraduate medical training in the UK is ‘fundamentally unsatisfactory’ with ‘residents often feeling isolated and unsupported’.
As chair of the RCP PA Oversight Group, I was pleased to respond on behalf of the RCP. The report is a thoughtful and thorough review of a very complex issue. It makes clear that PAs should not see undifferentiated patients and must be accountable to a named senior doctor. It also adopts many recommendations we made in our submission, including changing the name of the role to physician assistant. The RCP has confirmed that it will begin using the physician assistant nomenclature with immediate effect.
We will be supporting a four-nation approach to the implementation of the findings, engaging with the GMC, NHS, and others to ensure safe and effective implementation.
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am sure most of you will be aware that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will now head to the House of Lords, following it passing at third reading in the House of Commons in June. In May, the RCP published a position statement in response to the bill, setting out the key factors that must be protected in the legislation if it were to become law.
In Wales, we submitted that position statement to the Health and Social Care Committee, which is meeting this July with the cabinet secretary for health and social care to consider the Legislative Consent Motion (the method by which the Terminally Ill Adults Bill could become law in Wales). There is no date set for the debate in the Senedd yet. In October 2024, MSs voted against a motion backing the principle of assisted dying.
In Wales, we submitted that position statement to the Health and Social Care Committee, which is meeting this July with the cabinet secretary for health and social care to consider the Legislative Consent Motion (the method by which the Terminally Ill Adults Bill could become law in Wales). There is no date set for the debate in the Senedd yet. In October 2024, MSs voted against a motion backing the principle of assisted dying.
Labour Party conference
The RCP team recently returned to sunny Llandudno for the Labour Party conference. We were delighted that both the first minister and the cabinet secretary for health and social care came along to discuss our policy calls, as well as many MSs and prospective candidates. We will continue to push for a clinically led long-term workforce plan for the NHS and social care, and particularly the development of posts with the right skill sets and in the right locations across Wales.
Draft competency framework for palliative and end-of-life care
Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) is currently consulting on the final draft of the All Wales Competency Framework for Palliative and End of Life Care. If you would like to contribute your thoughts to our RCP response, please email emily.wooster@rcp.ac.uk by 5 August 2025.
Finally, I am sure you will all like to join me in congratulating Jacqui Sullivan, who has been promoted to manage the work of the Northern Ireland office as well as the Wales office of the RCP. This role is the central focal point of support for members and physicians within the two nations. It supports the RCP representatives and networks that are vital to connect physicians around Wales and NI to the work of the RCP, including in our policy influencing, and acts as a conduit to feedback what’s going on in the nations to RCP’s college officers and staff.
Dr Hilary Williams
Vice president for Wales
