Clips from 2-hour leaked extraordinary general meeting appear to show Royal College of Physicians avoiding scrutiny – but making damning admission of financial conflict of interests in government’s expansion of ‘non-doctor-doctor’ roles
A leaked video of the entire ‘extraordinary general meeting’ (EGM) of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), called by doctors to try to force a slow-down in the roll-out of the government’s expansion of the use of non-medically-trained staff in ‘doctor’ roles, has revealed comments and obfuscation that have led medical professionals to call for the resignation of senior RCP officers. One has already resigned.
A number of patients have already died avoidably because of errors by ‘physician associates’ (PA), who have only two years’ training compared the seven-plus years completed by doctors. A Doctors’ Association UK survey has found ‘deeply disturbing’ abuse of the PA role in NHS trusts.
Keele University cardiology Professor Mamas A Mamas wrote of the leaked video:
The ‘PlatinumPizza’ Twitter/X account has posted a number of excerpts from the EGM video highlighting what it feels are the most noteworthy evasions and obfuscations. The first two reveal that, while the RCP claims that PAs must complete national exams, a freedom of information request revealed that this can be bypassed – and that the RCP, which criticised a far more comprehensive survey by the British Medical Association (BMA) as biased, in fact skews the results of its own small survey to present a falsely positive outlook:
Doctors participating in the EGM also raised the issue of the fact that PAs are paid more than the junior doctors who often have to supervise them (and can be held to blame if a PA screws up) – but the RCP said it was ‘not a union’ and not interested in getting involved in pay issues:
Next, the first of two posts about the RCP’s prioritisation of its finances above what nine out of ten doctors feels is a grave threat to patient safety:
And then the second, which shows the RCP’s treasurer admitting/warning that the RCP could stand to lose millions if the PA expansion is halted or even slowed down – and the RCP apparently disagreeing with the RCP of a short while below about being a ‘union’, at least when it comes to ensuring PAs have jobs:
And, adding farce to the ‘contempt’ of which doctors accused the RCP after the meeting, the panel refuses to say what additional benefit a PA brings to a ‘multi-disciplinary team’ that is not already present in the mix – rounded off by a clip of a doctor warning of the dangers of pressing ahead with the whole damaging system:
And in a clip not included in the thread but created by Skwawkbox, one of the movers of the motion for the expansion to be slowed down until it can be shown to be safe for patients explains why it is so important for voting members of the RCP to support it, despite the RCP management’s recommendation to reject it and plough on:
Other discussions during the meeting included the panel failing to explain how it was going to ‘hold the government to account’ for the safe functioning of the system, as it had claimed it would – and treating the mere inclusion of any extra doctors in the government’s ‘long-term workforce plan’ as an achievement by the RCP.
The use of PAs, which is considered by nine out of ten doctors to be dangerous to patients and confuses many patients, who do not realise that they have not been seen and treated by a fully-qualified medic, is being pushed by the government as a way of ‘downskilling’ the NHS, reducing costs and allowing increased profits for private providers, under the guise of the so-called ‘NHS Workforce Plan’ as part of the ‘Integrated Care Systems’ (ICS) project.
ICS, formerly called ‘Accountable Care Organisations’ (ACOs) after the US system it copied, were renamed after awareness began to spread that ACOs were a system for withholding care from patients and that care providers were incentivised to cut care because they receive a share of the ‘savings’. The system remained the same, but the rebranding disguised the reality.
The government used a ‘statutory instrument’ (SI) to pass these changes, avoiding proper parliamentary scrutiny, but both the Tories and Keir Starmer’s Labour support these and other measures to cheapen the NHS for private involvement and only independent MP Claudia Webbe spoke against them during the brief SI debate. Green peer Natalie Bennett’s motion in the House of Lords to attempt to kill the instrument was defeated by the Tories with the help of Labour peers.
Watch the full RCP meeting here.
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