I had a great day in Manchester recently, attending the Manchester Paediatric Club, and look forward to joining the Scottish Paediatric Society St Andrew’s Day meeting next month. And I am really keen to attend more paediatric meetings.
One of the goals in our new strategy (see below) is to work more closely with local paediatric clubs and societies. This goal was supported by 77% of respondents in the membership survey earlier this year. The hope is that this works for all parties. Local paediatric clubs will be able to contact local members via contact details held by your College (in full accordance with GDPR regulations of course) to alert them to forthcoming educational events. Your College can offer to have a representative at local meetings to hear from members and to pass on what’s going on at the college. And hopefully this will let members feel a bit closer to their local paediatric club and College. I need your help to take this forward, please can you let me know the name and email address of the lead for your local paediatric clubs and society at s.w.turner@abdn.ac.uk? At this stage we are focusing on the UK. Many thanks in anticipation.
A second method of bringing members and College closer is to have officers and staff come to visit hospitals to see first-hand what a “usual day” looks like for members. In the membership survey, more than 70% of members who replied were happy or very happy for such visits to take place. A pilot is in the advanced stages (just need to agree on a date). I’ll be in touch with how this gets on early next year.
On the topic of engagement - earlier this week, the UK government kicked off what it has described as the biggest national conversation ever about the NHS in England. This conversation is intended to shape the next NHS 10 Year Plan and so it is an important opportunity to ensure your voice, and the needs of children and young people, are heard. We want to support you and, if you do have the chance to attend a session, we can send you some briefing materials. More on this coming soon – but for now, our statement on the launch of the engagement session has more information.
#WDYCD4Y - Introducing the Thrive Paediatrics resource hub
Recent data from the GMC and NHS Staff survey show that burnout rates remain at a concerningly high level. This comes at a personal cost to those affected and has significant ramifications for both staff retention and patient care.
The RCPCH Thrive Paediatrics resource hub supports you in your work to improve wellbeing and working lives. It provides evidence around wellbeing, practical illustrations of our Thrive Roadmap in practice and lived experience stories to help you improve your own and your colleagues’ wellbeing. Visit the resource hub on RCPCH Learning and start conversations about wellbeing in your local department.
Campaign win: Government announces ban on disposable e-cigarettes
The UK Government has announced a ban on disposable vapes taking place from 1 June 2025 in England and has highlighted similar bans will be brought forward across the nations. And we know work was already underway on this in Scotland. This is positive news for child health and for the planet following recent stats that a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds used a vape last year and 5 million are discarded each week. We will now call for robust roll-out especially in terms of implementation, enforcement, and monitoring.
We’re thrilled to announce the RCPCH Strategy 2024-27
Over the past two years, we have worked closely with our membership, College leaders, College committees and children and young people to gather insights to develop our vision and strategic direction. You’ll hear more about the strategy over the coming weeks and months but in the meantime, you can read the full strategy on our website.
RCPCH Conference 2025 - early bird registration open
Register now to get 15% off the normal ticket price. You can book for one, two or three days at the venue in Glasgow, or for a virtual pass. Watch this space for more details on keynote speakers, line-up, Conference activities and specialty session dates. Book your ticket now.
Milestones out now
Autumn is well and truly upon us, and that means the autumn edition of Milestones is now out. From exploring the role of health play specialists and navigating medical complexity to helping protect paediatricians’ mental health and wellbeing, this issue examines a range of resources available to help you best support infants, children and young people.
The latest data from our neonatal audit
The annual State of the Nation report for the National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) was published by RCPCH in October. Do have a look at the range of information available – we’ve highlighted key findings and recommendations from the review of 2023 data, created a ‘results at a glance’ section and presented extended analysis with next steps and resources for improvement. We also have the NNAP data dashboard, updated monthly with NNAP results by neonatal unit, Health Boards and regions for England, Scotland and Wales. We continue to call for, and are working towards, Northern Ireland joining the NNAP.
An important update to our screening of retinopathy of prematurity guideline
In light of new evidence, we reconvened our guideline development group to conduct a rapid review. We agreed an additional recommendation to consider screening babies born between 31+0 and 31+6 weeks' gestational age, and we’ve now published the updated ROP screening guideline and associated resources.
Member insight survey on our Facing the Future standards
As we work to update the RCPCH Facing the Future: Standards for acute general paediatric services (2015), Standards for children with ongoing health needs (2018) and Together for Child Health standards (2015), we would greatly value your input. Please take a few minutes to complete this short survey to help us understand the general aspects of the standards that have worked well, which aspects may need improvement, and for an opportunity to let us know of any innovations you’ve implemented that have helped improve service delivery in line with the standards.
We’ve brought together 47 organisations to demand Welsh government reduce impact of poverty and inequalities
Currently Wales has one of the highest poverty rates among the four UK nations, with 29% of children and 21% of working aged people living in poverty and this is driving inequalities across Wales. A national cross-government delivery plan to tackle poverty and inequality is desperately needed, and we wrote to Ministers to demand action.
Finally, help us improve the RCPCH website
We have an exciting and rare opportunity for members to shape the future of our main website. We need members from all locations, membership-types and career stages to sign up for a short research exercise that will help us to understand challenges of the current website structure. The exercise is fully remote and can be done any time within a five-day window. If you're interested in being part of this important study or to find out more, please complete this quick form [now complete].
Best wishes,
Steve
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