Preface D URING the last four years the College has been facing some of the greatest changes in British medicine and the National Health Service since 1948. If we are to be able to plan ahead, it is important to review research, and establish facts and principles on which our action should be based. All academic organizations depend on research and education and it is therefore on these that the College has focused in the past four years. This document comprises three papers, all approved by the Council during the past 12 months. In addition, an interim research strategy is well on the way and should be available within a few months.
An academic plan The first paper, "An Academic Plan for General Practice", which was approved in December 1989, summarizes the present position of academic general practice and charts the way ahead for the next few years. Great emphasis is placed on getting the structures and relationships of the various parts of academic general practice into a more logical relationship and ensuring more appropriate recognition and resources for them. Educational strategy Education has long been one of the College's main activities and the College led the introduction of vocational training for general practice in the 1960s and 1970s. Now the College is looking ahead past vocational training and is developing a more broadly based policy for continuing education for principals. The "Educational Strategy" was also approved in December 1989 and includes a particularly interesting proposal for the introduction of higher professional training within a College framework. This aims to offer a wider, more logical form of continuing education for young principals in general practice and to bring a new cohesion to what has been a rather diffuse part of general practice education in the past. Eventually the College will be able to recognize members who prepare professionally for their role in this way. Future of the College Finally, in any national organization a balance must be struck between what proportion of the work should be centred in its national headquarters, and what proportion outside. Membership of the College will always ultimately be judged by the quality of care provided for patients in members' practices. The faculty structure of the College remains one of its greatest strengths. The future of the College must therefore lie where the patients and the members of the College are, namely in the faculties.
The third section of this Occasional Paper is a paper approved by the Council in January 1990 called "The Faculties - the Future of the College". The message is in the title, which in itself represents one of the main priorities for the College. This section sets out the reasons for reform of the faculty structure, and why emphasis is placed on a College regional organization to match the new regional responsibilities in the National Health Service. In addition, the paper sets out the prime functions of the faculties, which are: to provide local companionship, to organize local education, including educational audit, to stimulate local research, to encourage and support College membership, and to ensure that the College is fully represented or in close touch with all Health Service and academic organizations within the faculty's boundary. Priorities for the future In summary, Occasional Paper 49, A College Plan - Priorities for the Future, reviews the place of general practice in medicine and calls for more recognition and resources for research work and rationalization of education in general practice. In providing an educational strategy for the 1990s, it introduces for the first time higher professional education and, in conjunction with Fellowship by Assessment, which is described in Occasional Paper 50, sets the scene for a much more broadly based
role for the faculties of the College in the future. DENIS PEREIRA GRAY Chairman of Council 1987-1990 Royal College of General Practitioners
November 1990 v
An academic plan The first paper, "An Academic Plan for General Practice", which was approved in December 1989, summarizes the present position of academic general practice and charts the way ahead for the next few years. Great emphasis is placed on getting the structures and relationships of the various parts of academic general practice into a more logical relationship and ensuring more appropriate recognition and resources for them. Educational strategy Education has long been one of the College's main activities and the College led the introduction of vocational training for general practice in the 1960s and 1970s. Now the College is looking ahead past vocational training and is developing a more broadly based policy for continuing education for principals. The "Educational Strategy" was also approved in December 1989 and includes a particularly interesting proposal for the introduction of higher professional training within a College framework. This aims to offer a wider, more logical form of continuing education for young principals in general practice and to bring a new cohesion to what has been a rather diffuse part of general practice education in the past. Eventually the College will be able to recognize members who prepare professionally for their role in this way. Future of the College Finally, in any national organization a balance must be struck between what proportion of the work should be centred in its national headquarters, and what proportion outside. Membership of the College will always ultimately be judged by the quality of care provided for patients in members' practices. The faculty structure of the College remains one of its greatest strengths. The future of the College must therefore lie where the patients and the members of the College are, namely in the faculties.
The third section of this Occasional Paper is a paper approved by the Council in January 1990 called "The Faculties - the Future of the College". The message is in the title, which in itself represents one of the main priorities for the College. This section sets out the reasons for reform of the faculty structure, and why emphasis is placed on a College regional organization to match the new regional responsibilities in the National Health Service. In addition, the paper sets out the prime functions of the faculties, which are: to provide local companionship, to organize local education, including educational audit, to stimulate local research, to encourage and support College membership, and to ensure that the College is fully represented or in close touch with all Health Service and academic organizations within the faculty's boundary. Priorities for the future In summary, Occasional Paper 49, A College Plan - Priorities for the Future, reviews the place of general practice in medicine and calls for more recognition and resources for research work and rationalization of education in general practice. In providing an educational strategy for the 1990s, it introduces for the first time higher professional education and, in conjunction with Fellowship by Assessment, which is described in Occasional Paper 50, sets the scene for a much more broadly based
role for the faculties of the College in the future. DENIS PEREIRA GRAY Chairman of Council 1987-1990 Royal College of General Practitioners
November 1990 v
