'The State of medical education and practice in the UK': Association's response to GMC annual report
Thursday 16 January 2020
The GMC recently published their ninth annual “The state of medical education and practice in the UK” report which sets out some of the challenges and opportunities in sustaining the successes of the medical profession.
We welcome the recommendations set out in the report and appreciate the particular attention paid to issues of health and wellbeing, workforce supply and regulation of new roles. The Association is working on these issues to ensure that standards of health and wellbeing are raised, and that the workforce is properly supported to deliver safer care.
Our resources can be helpful in addressing wellbeing issues and are available online: https://anaesthetists.org/Home/Wellbeing-support
We are delighted to acknowledge the decision to regulate two medical associate professions - physician associates (PA) and anaesthesia associates (AA). The GMC’s role as a regulator will ensure that their contribution can be enhanced through formal regulation and professional development. Recently we published a joint statement together with the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Association of Anaesthesia Associates which can be found here.
We endorse the call to make education and training more flexible along with support for more multi-professional working; we believe this will serve the medical profession well.
In addition, the Association will publish a statement on the NHS patient safety strategy and a briefing to cover workforce issues in the NHS affecting anaesthetic practice in which we support the GMC’s call to increase the workforce supply to meet safe staffing levels.