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Tax relief for Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh trainees

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh announced on Tuesday 14 May that following negotiations between the College’s Trainee Member of Council, Issaq Ahmed, and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), it has been successful in obtaining agreement that all mandatory training fees payable by all medical trainees will become tax deductible: for surgical trainees this includes the fee payable to the Joint Committee on Surgical Training (JCST).

The initiative to approach HMRC with this issue, following previous unsuccessful attempts, was spearheaded and led by Trainee Member of Council, Issaq Ahmed. Speaking about the new agreement, Mr Ahmed said:

“As a Committee which represents the interests and concerns of trainee surgeons, and as trainee surgeons ourselves, the cost of training is an issue of great importance to us. We know that it is also of great concern to our colleagues in other areas of healthcare. Although mandatory fees such as the JCST fee were not recognised as tax deductible, we firmly believed that such fees met all the guidelines set by HMRC as to what constitutes eligibility for tax deductible status. We set our case before HMRC and, following some months of communication and submitting evidence, our assertions were accepted. We are absolutely delighted with the outcome which will make a real difference to the amount that medical trainees have to pay throughout their medical training.”

RCSEd President, Mr Ian Ritchie added:

“It is central to the aims and beliefs of our College that we support each new generation of surgeons. We made the decision to have an elected Trainee Member of Council and, subsequently, constituted the College’s Trainees’ Committee, to ensure that the College could stay abreast of the issues facing trainee surgeons. I am delighted that Issaq has had such success and I commend all his efforts. Through his hard work and dedication he has not only been able to help his fellow surgical trainees but all his medical trainee colleagues.”

Further information can be found on the HMRC website.

You can download and read the confirmation letter from HMRC via the RCSEd website.

Friday, 17 May 2013

General News
New scheme will allow doctors easier access to provide short-term support across NHS organisations
From today, NHS consultant doctors can apply for certificates that will help verify them for short-term work elsewhere in the NHS or at universities.

This initiative is designed to help improve responsiveness to patient emergencies and to enable more consultants to be present providing extra support, when and where patients need them.

The existing system requires checks to be resolved before consultants can transfer between organisations and this can often be a lengthy process, taking up to several weeks. However, consultants who are successfully eligible for the new certificates will immediately be able to carry out short-term, ad hoc or urgent activity in other hospitals and universities.

Called The Certificate of Fitness for Honorary Practice, it has been developed by NHS Employers and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC).

Rather than replacing the more detailed and time-consuming honorary contract, this certificate will enable short-term placements by ensuring all consultants' employment checks - such as occupational health and Criminal Record Bureau checks - are up-to-date and agreed. The certificate is then held on the consultant's file, to be produced when they are invited to assist in patient care or training at another organisation on a short term basis.

Dean Royles, Chief Executive of the NHS Employers organisation, said:

“This certificate retains all of the safeguards that ensure doctors are fit to work. But it will help doctors to work across organisations, being in the right place, at the right time, when patients and colleagues need them most.

“We’ve been looking at what’s happened in the NHS and seen occasions where there’s simply no time to carry out the mandatory checks when a consultant is best placed to do short-term work elsewhere. We’re really pleased to have worked with the AoMRC to produce a workable, efficient way of speeding up the process.

“Having an ‘honorary contract’ with another organisation is already common among consultants. But the new certificate expedites all the other checks that come with honorary contracts, and creates short-term opportunities when those contracts aren’t in place.

“Adaptability is essential in modern healthcare and I hope this is just one of many changes that see doctors working more flexibly right across the NHS.”

Professor Terence Stephenson, Chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said:

“The certificate will make it quicker and simpler for doctors to work temporarily at another trust, which will benefit patient care and treatment as well as doctors’ skills. Too many times opportunities have been missed by the extended time it takes to obtain an honorary contract. It is essential that we make it easier for doctors to support the NHS as a whole by being able to cover absences and emergencies as well as improving their own training and skills in other trusts.

Su-Anna Boddy, Consultant Paediatric Urologist, Royal College of Surgeons England, said:

“This certificate provides excellent opportunities for improved patient care by allowing clinicians to move between trusts much more easily than is currently the case. In particular, allowing them to work in other hospitals with significantly reduced paperwork will help doctors to share expertise and facilitate better working across clinical networks.”

The certificate can be used for:
- Emergency or occasional treatment of a patient (e.g. to cover sick leave)
- Promoting continuity of care of a patient
- Allowing a consultant to provide short-term specialist training to other clinicians in the area of his/her expertise
- Allowing a consultant to receive short-term training/continuing professional development to expand their skills in an area of practice that is new to them or in innovative techniques and technology.
The certificate is not intended to be used for:
- Providing evidence of personal identity
- Ongoing honorary employment or research activity (an appropriate honorary contract should be used)
- Making an offer for long-term paid or unpaid employment
- Any other circumstance where an honorary contract is more appropriate
- Sanctioning activity when the consultant is scheduled to be working for his/her substantive employer (except by agreement with the substantive employer)
- Locum appointments
- Remediation purposes.
More details and documents are available here:

Certificate of Fitness for Honorary Practice
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
General News
Specialty Portfolios Project

The Revalidation Support Team initiated a specialist portfolio project last year to explore what a high quality appraisal portfolio for doctors would look like; and to gain a better understanding of what information is needed and how it could be collected and used in the most effective way. This project was to build on the medical Royal Colleges and Faculties' work exploring how specialist guidance could most effectively lead to improvements in quality of care. The Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management, Royal College of Physicians London and the Royal College of Surgeons of England participated in the project and the portfolios have now been published.

More about the Specialty Portfolios Project

Example appraisal portfolios

Example appraisal portfolios comentary

For queres or more information please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Friday, 10 May 2013

Revalidation News
Establishment of a clinical advisory Group to the Trust Special Administrator

Joint Statement from the Trust Special Administrators of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

The Trust Special Administrators are required to act in the interest of patients. This means that any recommendations for the future of the services at Mid Staffordshire Trust have to be clinically safe as well as financially sustainable.

Professor Hugo Mascie-Taylor, one of the Joint Trust Special Administrators, has set up an independent clinical advisory group and asked the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges to nominate senior representatives from the UK’s Medical Royal Colleges to form the group and consider any proposed arrangements to ensure they are safe for patients.

Medical Royal Colleges are independent professional medical organisations whose central concerns are the standards of clinical care for patients as well as the post-graduate training of doctors. This group will provide the Trust Special Administrators with independent advice on the impact of their proposals on the quality of care for patients in the Stafford and Cannock area. This will be particularly in relation to the likely impact on the safety of clinical care and the ability to recruit and retain medical staff.

The formal advice of the Clinical Advisory Group will be publicly available. Any final recommendations will, however, remain the responsibility of the Trust Special Administrators and ultimate decisions rest with the Secretary of State for Health.

The precise composition of the Clinical Advisory Group and individual membership are still to be decided. Most specialities are relevant but acute medicine and surgery, paediatrics, anaesthetics, emergency medicine, obstetrics and general practice as well as diagnostic support services will definitely be represented. The individual members will be senior experienced doctors from the relevant Medical Colleges who can provide authoritative medical input on clinical issues.

The Group will work within the TSA timetable and is likely to meet on a number of occasions and will visit Mid-Staffordshire Trust.

Commenting on the establishment of Clinical Advisory Group Professor Terence Stephenson,
Chairman of the Academy of Medical Colleges said:

“Medical Royal Colleges’ principal concern is the quality of clinical care for patients. Where changes in NHS services are required it must be clinical quality considerations that drive the process and underpin the solutions.

Medical Royal Colleges will provide that independent medical opinion and we welcome the opportunity to form the Clinical Advisory Group and advise on any recommendations. Colleges will wish to help so that patients in Stafford continue to receive safe, high quality care”

Hugo Mascie-Taylor said:

“The quality and safety of services are as important as their financial sustainability. For that I need to have an independent clinical opinion on any proposals we produce. The Royal Medical Colleges as the custodians of clinical quality standards are best placed to provide that independent viewpoint. I am grateful for their input”

For further information please see the Office of the MSFT Trust Special Administrator website.

Monday, 29 April 2013

General News
Evidence Based Medicine Matters

Evidence based medicine is the key to the success of modern healthcare. A booklet, launched on 25 April by Sense About Science and the Academy contains case studies of 15 of the game changers in evidence based medicine.

All agree that evidence based medicine must be at the core of medical Royal Colleges’ role in raising the standard of patient care. They also agree that there are frustrations and challenges to this aspiration. It will never be possible to investigate every intervention for every possible circumstance and some treatments escape rigorous scrutiny. Complicated discussions about whether funding, time and expertise should be focused on clinical research, basic research or training are going on. Grappling with these frustrations must continue. Medicine is driven by precisely this kind of critical approach. It is because medical professionals are willing to open things up for discussion again and again that we can move medicine forward.

Professor Terence Stephenson, Chairman, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said:

“The 15 case studies illustrate the role evidence based medicine plays in shaping and influencing healthcare across the profession. The Academy and its members are committed to continually improve patient safety through the development and testing of treatments, tests and prevention strategies to take medicines and healthcare into the future. We are pleased that this booklet highlights that work and the dedication of the Colleges and Faculties to patient welfare through evidence based medicine.”

Síle Lane, from Sense About Science said:

“The Colleges have shown us that the caricature of modern medicine as immobile and blind to new ideas is wrong. The way doctors continually draw questions about treatments back into the frame stands in stark contrast to some traditional medical practitioners who champion long use of a treatment over anything else.”

Download the Evidence Based Medicine Matters report. For more information see the Sense about Science website.

Thursday, 25 April 2013

General News

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Tax relief for Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh trainees

New scheme will allow doctors easier access to provide short-term support across NHS organisations

Specialty Portfolios Project

Establishment of a clinical advisory Group to the Trust Special Administrator

Joint Statement from the Trust Special Administrators of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

Evidence Based Medicine Matters

Joint Statement from the Trust Special Administrators of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

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