'Independent inquiry finds serious governance failures at the Royal College of Physicians of London'

E

Eleanor

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
An opinion piece in the BMJ by Trisha Greenhalgh, Martin McKee and a few others:

https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1983

“… a range of collective failures in leadership” (page 3)

“… a clear lack of accountability and due process.” (page 4)

“[T]here is a pervasive lack of trust and confidence in the College’s governance.” (page 4)

“The Council is not operating effectively.” (page 4)

“When the evidence did not … match the apparent pre-conceived views of those behind the survey [of members], it led to the results being presented in a biased way.” (page 5)

These quotes, from a 45-page report published by the King’s Fund,1 summarise the findings of an independent inquiry into the events surrounding an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the Royal College of Physicians of London held on 13 March 2024. By the time the inquiry began in May 2024, several college officers, including the president and registrar, had resigned. The college is currently operating with an interim president and has promised to learn from the inquiry and heed its recommendations.
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The inquiry’s findings of failure of leadership, disjointed governance, lack of engagement with members’ and fellows’ concerns, allegations of manipulating data, and a culture that sometimes included “shouting and the use of intimidatory language” (page 5) led the King’s Fund to recommend various actions.
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An inquiry into college structures may turn up new insights. But the King's Fund report already provides compelling evidence that the college’s leadership presided over a culture that was toxic and unprofessional, while promoting policy that was in opposition to its values and the views of its fellows and members. It will take time to come up with new, more effective, structures but, given the evidence that Parliament may have been misled, we respectfully suggest that those who held the highest executive and board-level oversight roles during this period might consider their positions.
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Interesting that this was very effectively buried. I am a fellow and heard nothing of it. I don't recall the occurrence of an extraordinary general meeting or any political fall-out.

Clearly Dame-hoods are more important than patients. The result is a catastrophe - just part of a bigger catastrophe.

I won't go into the politics but today a party leader has suggested that more money for the NHS is needed now - £5billion. The problem is that it needs to be £60billion now and the physician associate programme needs scrapping today.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Interesting that this was very effectively buried. I am a fellow and heard nothing of it. I don't recall the occurrence of an extraordinary general meeting or any political fall-out.

Clearly Dame-hoods are more important than patients. The result is a catastrophe - just part of a bigger catastrophe.

I won't go into the politics but today a party leader has suggested that more money for the NHS is needed now - £5billion. The problem is that it needs to be £60billion now and the physician associate programme needs scrapping today.
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Is poor governance an issue at many of the Royal Colleges, or is the RCP an outlier?

edit: I think what I'm really wondering about is how far the different Colleges involve patients in their planning which may be different but related.
 
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The MEA has a comment about this on their fb page with a link to the BMJ report which is described as a 45 page independent enquiry by the King's fund.

https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj...QZHaz-gKspp2T7fAeQ_aem_BUYWADgm-C_f7Shbm3tHfQ..


"A group of fellows had called the EGM in March to challenge the college’s position on physician associates. The background to this challenge and various versions of what happened before, during, and after the EGM are well documented.23456 Briefly, in September 2023, several fellows were concerned that plans for physician associates to be regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC) and overseen by the Royal College of Physicians had taken insufficient account of patient safety or ........"

edited in:
."Crucially, delays in setting up the EGM meant that by the time it was held, the Statutory Instrument had already been passed by Parliament. As the inquiry found, “had the EGM been held before that point, the concerns raised would have been fed into the parliamentary process and may have affected the passage of the legislation” (page 18)."




(I am wondering how much the RCP involve lay people/patients in decisions about future plans/ issues arising. I feel sure that patients would wish to be consulted on this issue of physician associates.)
 
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