2016 will be a year for change

2015 was a positive year for the RCS. As you may have seen in our recent infographic, our wide range of activity throughout the year, including fellowships, events, training and development opportunities, supported you, our members, and also helped drive forward the work of the profession.

In 2016 we will continue to work towards delivering our three strategic priorities, underpinning the College’s vision of advancing surgical care. In line with this, we’ve already launched:

• Our 2016 events planner, enabling you to stay up to date, network and develop your skills through our programme of regional and national events.
• New access for members to ClinicalKey e-resources, including over 600 e-journals,1000 e-textbooks, multimedia, videos and more.

We will continue to support trainees, the future of the profession. RCS President Clare Marx has recently written a blog about supporting junior doctors. We’ve also published a collection of best practice examples of how the NHS can make the most of trainee doctors’ insights.

Our work with government and the media will continue to be integral in influencing and shaping health policy and practice to advance standards of surgical care.

We will shortly be launching the RCS Major Trauma Workforce Sustainability document, a key piece of work that outlines a framework for training and career planning for surgeons working within the English major trauma service.

We are making excellent progress in our work to raise standards in cosmetic surgery through the Cosmetic Surgery Inter-specialty Committee (CSIC). Shortly before Christmas we published information about the dataset and clinical outcome measures that all independent providers of cosmetic surgery must collect, and in the spring we will launch a new system of certification for all surgeons who wish to perform cosmetic surgery.

We will also be launching a new website in the spring, helping you to navigate around our resources and content and easily find information relevant to you.

We will update you on news and developments throughout the year in our bi-weekly member e-newsletter. If you are a member and do not currently receive this but would like to, please let us know.

On a personal note, I am delighted to have joined the College in September, particularly at a time of such ambition for change. I have a strong background in senior management within the NHS and have enjoyed working closely with many surgeons over the years. I look forward to making the acquaintance of many more members as we place increasing emphasis on how we work in the regions and devolved nations.

Andrew Reed, RCS Chief Executive