Issues
arising from the Royal College of Pathologists Council meeting
held on the 28th April 2006
South East England Regional Council
Present
Gordon Ferns (Chair)
Margaret Ashton-Key (Vice Chair and Minutes secretary)
Graham Russell (IT Rep.)
Pamela Gover
Sarah Deacock
Andrew Stacey
Stephen Halloran (Modernisation Rep)
Francis Matthey
Apologies
John Southgate (Workforce Rep.)
Mike Murphy
John Schofield (Finance Rep.)
Ann Nandi
Mohammad Khan
Documents discussed at the meeting:
Minutes and brief reports from meetings of November, January and
March 2006 of College Council (Appendices 1a-e)
Letter from the President to Lord Warner regarding Pathology review
(Appendix 2)
Regional Specialty Advisers for SE England (Appendix 3)
Nominations for College Council Committee membership and College
Examiners (for information) (Appendix 4a and b)
Good standing (Appendix 5)
Pathology Modernisation Reference Panel (Appendix 6)
Regional Council elections (Appendix 7)
Documents tabled at the meeting:
Clinical Excellence Awards
Proposed RCPath ACCEA SE committee
Regional Web site
1. Apologies
As above.
2. Minutes of Meeting held on 9th December 2005
These were agreed as correct after making minor corrections.
3. Matters arising
i) CPA Guidelines for Immunology
A discussion on the Guidelines was led by SD.
It was felt that the guidance for on site sessions of a Consultant
Immunologist were unrealistic given the current workforce position.
CPA would permit the following without consultant input: rheumatoid
factor, negative autoantibody screens, total IgE, C3, C4, cardiolipin
antibodies. The CPA guidelines indicate that the inclusion of
other tests in the repertoire requires at least one session of
Consultant Immunologist on site. This was considered impractical
given the shortage of Consultant Immunologists, and would mean
that many more tests would have to be centralised. The WDC has
indicated that there would be no further increase in NTNs for
trainees in Immunology, despite increasing workload, and it was
therefore unlikely that this would be solved in the short, or
medium term.
PG stated that accreditation was now being refused for some Haematology
Departments with no Consultant Immunologist, that were undertaking
some immunology testing - Eastbourne in this position at present.
CPA were being very inflexible and had not permitted renewal of
accreditation of Haematology without Immunology. GF had raised
the issue at College Council, and had been asked to keep Council
apprised of any further developments.
Action SD would draft a brief letter to present to College Council
from SE England Regional Council. This would initially be copied
to all members of SE England Regional Council.
PG would provide SD with details from the Eastbourne experience
of the CPA process to date, so that it could be included in the
letter.
ii) A SE England Regional dinner had been held in Tunbridge Wells,
Kent that had been organised by Mohammad Khan. It had been a very
successful meeting and it was felt that a further meeting be held
in Oxford, or Reading in September 2006, and perhaps a further
meeting in Guildford in 2007.
Action GF to contact Professor Chris Price to ask if he would
agree to speak on modernisation and the outcome of the Carter
Pathology Review.
Academic pathology would also be a discussion topic.
AS to nominate a speaker on academic pathology and to start looking
for a venue for the September meeting, and sources of sponsorship.
iii) Membership of Modernisation panel
A list of members of the panel was provided in appendix 6. SH
asked whether the panel had requested input from the nominated
representatives from each Regional Council. GF stated that he
had asked that these representatives be involved in some way.
Hopefully they would be involved in the appraisal of the final
report.
iv) Disbanding of Regional Sub-Committees
GF had arranged for a letter to be sent to all Fellows and Members
informing them of the disbanding of subcommittees. GF had had
an e-mail from a member in Northampton who indicated that Northampton
Hospital may best be part of the Trent Regional Council. GF stated
that the College may well be open to any reasonable request, and
it would be up to individual Trusts to approach the College.
4. Reports from RCPath Council meetings of November, January and
March 2006 and Matters Arising
January 2006
a) Sir Nettar Mallick (ACCEA) had requested that there should
be greater clarity and harmonisation in how recommendations from
the Royal Colleges were obtained..
b) PMETB had indicated that the award of a CCT did not always
mean completion of training in some specialities.
c) The Workforce database implementation had stalled (hopefully
temporarily) due to funding difficulties.
March 2006
a) The Carter report publication date had been delayed until July
2006.
b) The mechanism for NHS R&D funding would change, the process
being phased over the next two years. This would have a great
impact on smaller Trusts, relying on several bidding rounds. This
may have an adverse impact on junior staff research projects,
and research in Pathology overall.
c) Connecting for Health was in its First Draft and had not considered
several important aspects of pathology, including blood tracking
and cytology screening.
d) MMC has introduced the concept of fixed term speciality training
and the notion of sub-consultant grades that was not supported
by the College.
e) It was agreed that training should be considered in ISTC contracts.
f) The College online CPD system was discussed. Several members
found the system very workable and useful. However there were
some difficulties in using the data for the 10% audit. The justification
of claiming points for MDT meetings was discussed, and in particular
whether individuals should be expected to make brief notes of
what they had learned at an MDT meeting, as a form of validation.
Views were mixed on the issue, as it was felt that insisting on
notes may impose further demands on already busy colleagues.
i) The letter from the President to Lord Warner regarding Pathology
review had been circulated for information (Appendix 2). No additional
comments were made by Council.
ii) The list of Regional Speciality Advisers for SE England was
circulated (Appendix 3). GF stated that Advisors serving the London
Deanery may be from London or the South East for historical reasons,
and because for some specialties Lon don Deanery had taken the
lead role. Relevant nominations were discussed by Regional Council.
Jeffrey Barron wished to step down as Regional Specialty Adviser
in Chemical Pathology for SW Thames. GF had been nominated by
the Chemical Pathology STC to replace him pending agreement by
SE England Regional Council. This was ratified by Council. It
was also agreed by Regional Council that Rachel Liebmann be allowed
to serve a second term as Regional Specialty Adviser in Histopathology
for SE Thames. An advert for the Regional Adviser in Histopathology
for SW Thames has been circulated to all SE England Region members
and would be considered in due course.
iii) Nominations for College Council Committee membership and
College Examiners had been circulated for information (Appendix
4a and b) and were noted by members of Council.
iv) A paper on ‘Good standing’ had been circulated
(Appendix 5). Comments on this had been raised at Regional Council
previously, and had been input into College Council by GF previously.
v) The composition of the Pathology Modernisation Reference Panel
had been circulated with papers (Appendix 6). It was noted that
the Modernisation representative of Regional Council had not been
invited to participate in the process of consultation, and it
was hoped that he may be involved in the College’s response
to the Pathology Review. Action GF to raise this at College Council.
vi) The forthcoming Regional Council elections were noted in a
letter received from College that listed the members of Regional
Council whose terms of office were due to end in November 2006
(Appendix 7). It was noted that the closing date for nominations
was in June. GF indicated that if there were insufficient nominations,
members may be co-opted onto Council to allow adequate regional
and specialty representation.
5. Regional Council Officers’ reports
(i) Finances (Treasurer) (Accounts tabled)
There appeared to be an omission from the current accounts, in
that the sponsorship for the SE dinner has not been entered into
the accounts so far. Members had not been charged for the Dinner
in Kent as sufficient sponsorship had been received to cover the
costs.
(ii) Modernisation (Modernisation lead) no additional items to
discuss
(ii) Workforce (Workforce Lead)
In JS’s absence, GF stated that there had been some concern
expressed regarding frozen vacancies in several specialties for
financial reasons. In the short term this would have an impact
on SpRs nearing their CST date.
Centrally funded NTN posts were only planned for histopathology.
No centrally funded NTNs for other pathology specialities were
currently anticipated. This was likely to have a significant impact
on some of the smaller disciplines including Immunology and Chemical
Pathology.
6. College Regional CEA Panel and process
GF expressed some concern about the College’s process of
ACCEA nominations. There had been very short notice, and there
had been difficulties choosing a panel in the time scale. The
availability of suitably qualified panel members had made things
more difficult. Members were required to be national award holders.
Members of Regional Council wondered whether the holding of a
National Award was mandatory, and whether the transparency of
the process may be improved by having members of the panel who
were not National Award holders. GF would raise the issue at College
Council.
7. Correspondence and Documents received
Jeff Barron, Chair of London Regional Council, had raised concerns
regarding the process of appointment of Regional Speciality Advisors
in correspondence to GF. Adverts for posts had now been circulated
and would need to be approved by SE England Regional Council for
some disciplines.
The Chair of examiners in Chemical Pathology had requested nominations
for examiners in the MRCPath examination from SE England as there
was a lack of regional representation.
8. Any other business
(i) The boundaries of the proposed SHA had now been established.
SE England Region now corresponded to the boundaries for South
East Coast and South Central SHAs combined and served a population
of approximately 8.1M people. This is the largest of all Regional
Councils, and clearly this would continue to mean the need for
developing appropriate means of communicating with members. The
Website would be an important means, as would the occasional social
meetings that were planned to take place.
(ii) Web site construction
GF circulated some of the web pages of other Regional Councils.
GF suggest adding some further headings on the front page in line
with these, including:
· College tutors,
· Job description Panels,
· Regional speciality advisors
Action GF to ask Charlotte Balazs for this information to be collated
and passed to Evan Hugo.
The News and events panel would include updates and information
for members, such as details of the forthcoming dinner etc. and
should perhaps include photos from the dinner in Tunbridge Wells.
Action SH to send pictures to Evan Hugo
It was suggested that a map of the region should also be included
on the website
Action GR to investigate this and arrange with the College’s
web master
It was also agreed that the summaries of College Council meetings
also be posted on the Website
Action GF to ensure this happens in future.
(iii) A National Bowel Cancer screening Programme had been established
by the DoH. Money has just been allocated to several regional
Hubs, including Guildford to run the programme. The programme
has to be up and running by the end of the year. SH would post
the appropriate information on the SE England Website for informing
colleagues.
Action SH to post information on SE England Region Website
9. Dates of next meetings
22nd September 2006, 8th December 2006, 20th April 2007
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