In recent weeks the Policy team has been working hard on a number of projects. Firstly, we have led on the College’s response to the White Paper proposed by the DHSC, submitting evidence to the Health and Social Care Select Committee enquiry on it. The College is broadly supportive of the direction of travel towards more collaboration but has expressed some concerns on details, such as whether clinical leadership of ICS’s will be legislated for.
We have also produced a manifesto of asks for the Scottish elections which was distributed to all the Scottish parties leadership and health teams, including asks for more standalone surgical hospitals and calls for a commitment to environmentally sustainable surgery.
The Policy team is also leading on the College’s work on Equality and Diversity and has been preparing for a campaign launch on 19th April. Keep any eye out on College emails for more details of this campaign.
Finally we have also been working on a number of other, smaller, pieces of work. These have included responding to the postponement of graduations for dental students in Scotland, continuing dialogue with Stephen Powis, Frank Atherton and others on the pandemic and internal briefings on the NHS’s priorities for 2021/22 document. If you have any questions or feedback on any of these issues please don’t hesitate to contact the Policy team on birmingham@rcsed.ac.uk.