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Central Consultants and Specialists Committee annual report 2008

Download the annual report in PDF format using the link on the right




Chairman's message
CCSC’s focus this year has been on championing clinical leadership and the value of consultants. We have promoted use of the 2003 contract, re-gaining professional control over the issues that doctors can most competently handle and on critically engaging with NHS reforms. We have also made a good start of reforming our communications with the profession. Our latest campaign – to enhance quality through targeted consultant expansion – has also been well received.

Guidance on hospital reconfiguration stressed safety, quality, clinical leadership in partnership with patients and a good evidence base; it strongly opposed financially-driven reconfiguration and was still widely promoted by the Department of Health. Our strong opposition to a new sub-consultant grade and promotion of the value of consultants has been influential, successful and will continue. The
participation of key CCSC members in the MMC programme board, alongside JDC members, has produced valuable results in what was a formidable task of doctor-led crisis management and problem
solving which demonstrated why workforce and other reforms must be led by the profession to get the best results.

We have continued the theme of clinical leadership in our input to the Darzi reviews in London and the Next Stage Review, the results of which need close critical appraisal to ensure the best results for our members and for patients. Although Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS is causing much anxiety, it is essential for us to engage with it if we are to challenge those aspects we feel may not be right for doctors and patients. We have done that and will continue to do that as the review proceeds to its final stages.

We have produced guidance on aspects of the consultant contract to enable its full potential; another area where we have been proactively engaged. Much of this has focused on defending and promoting Supporting Professional Activities, which are key to ensuring that consultants play crucial, wider leadership roles in the health service.

On the changes to medical regulation, we have developed strong policy on using existing mechanisms to satisfy revalidation and have promoted this amongst other stakeholders in government and the
profession.

We have sought to engage much more with the consultant body, with a major survey of consultant opinion launched in March, improvements in communications (new newsletter, weekly website chairman’s updates, cascades and mass-emails on urgent issues) and a programme of sold-out seminars for local consultant representatives.

Finally, we continue to forge links with the Government, NHS Employers, Colleges and other stakeholders. These are essential to retaining the influence that delivers vital benefits for our constituents at a challenging, uncertain and often unsettling time.

This last year has been challenging for all of us, but I firmly believe that the approach of engagement that the CCSC has taken is right for our position as a profession that feels embattled by reform and for patients that feel confused by it. The NHS cannot function effectively without our clinical skills, our innovation and our leadership. Our challenge to the Government is to recognise that and to empower us to lead. The challenge to us is to take up positions of leadership and to use them responsibly to re-build professional confidence and to strive for a better and better service.

Dr Jonathan Fielden, Chairman, CCSC