Committees

Corporate Governance

The committee is chaired by a Lay Chair and is responsible for assuring the administrative functions of the College, financial governance and responsible for HR issues within the College.

Education Committee

This Committee is concerned with setting standards in Emergency Medicine by examinations, eLearning, CPD and research.
The Committee is chaired by the Dean of the College.
Information about examinations can be found in the Exams section
Information about the EM Curriculum can be found in the Curriculum section
Information about Continuing Professional Development (CPD) can be found in the CPD section
Information about eLearning is available on RCEMLearning
Information about research is available in the Research section

International

The Global EM Committee was established in 2017 and is currently chaired by Dr Jason Long.
You can find out more about the committee’s work in the International Section

The International Education Sub-Committee was also formed in 2017 and is currently chaired by Dr Sundararaj Manou

Lay Advisory Group

The Lay Advisory Group was created in 2008 as part of the College’s new constitution, and it has been fully operational since February 2009. It exists to contribute a non-clinical perspective to College decision-making at every level.
The Lay Advisory Group (LAG) provides advice from a lay perspective on the standards of care and training in Emergency Medicine. The LAG is primarily a lay, not a patient representative group.
Unlike other Medical Colleges, the nature of emergency medicine means that RCEM does not represent patients with specific conditions. In light of this LAG acts as a critical friend to the College, offering strategic advice from a non-institutional perspective. However the College does champion the needs of patients’ safety in emergency medicine and from time to time LAG may provide or source the patient perspective on specific issues when required.
The LAG has an advisory role and reports to the Council, the Chair of the LAG sits on Council. The LAG remit covers the following:

Highlighting areas of patient concern to the Royal College and Council and advise on appropriate action
Ensuring that the Royal College takes into account the patient and public perspective in all appropriate activities.
Being a resource for the Royal College to enable the delivery of a professional service that meets the needs and aspirations of patients and the public.
Developing patient and public involvement in Royal College activities
Developing patient information and education in Emergency Medicine
Contributing to the development of Royal College policies
Ensuring that decisions are made according to the Royal College’s role in protecting the public interest, and in promoting high professional standards
Responding to requests for comments from Council, its Boards and Committees
Highlighting the work of the Royal College whilst safeguarding the Royal College’s reputation.

To fulfil this remit the Chair of the Lay Group liaises with the President and Chief Executive of the College to determine how best to utilise the skills and experience of the lay members, having regard for their time available and budgetary constraints. This includes involvement in College projects and Committee work on an issue by issue basis, as well as sitting on College Committees.

The role of the lay representative is to combine being a supportive member of a decision making panel, providing independent guidance and constructive challenges to current ways of thinking. All lay members are invited to act as individuals rather than on behalf of outside organisations, but they are encouraged to feedback information to those organisations with which they have links. The LAG has 12 members including representation from devolved nations.

Please contact the committee via Tamara Pinedo: tamara.pinedo@rcem.ac.uk or +44 (0)20 7067 4819.

Professional Affairs

Service Delivery Committee Cluster

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine is dedicated to achieving the highest standards of practice and patient care.

Subcommittees

Careers Group

Co-Chairs Anna Buckley and Duncan Carmichael
This committee coordinates all activities aimed at developing, promoting and monitoring careers information for students and doctors in training grades on behalf of the College.

Further information and resources can be found here: Considering a career in EM

Informatics Committee

Chair – Dr Kirsty Challen
The Informatics Committee seeks to develop case-mix measures and high quality data collection and information technology systems for the specialty of Emergency Medicine.

Objectives

To develop case-mix measures and high quality data collection and information technology systems for the speciality of Emergency Medicine
To advise the NHS, DOH, HCC, Connecting for Health, the Royal Colleges and other national bodies who have an interest in data collection and information technology in Emergency Departments.
To develop and maintain the case-mix and information technology section of the College website

Information and resources about case-mix and IT can be found in the Informatics section on the Service Design & Delivery page.

For any enquiries please contact Sam.Mcintyre@rcem.ac.uk

Revalidation Committee

Chair Gillian Bryce
This committee coordinates College policy on revalidation and provides guidance to members and fellows with regard to revalidation.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s role in revalidation, as with other medical royal colleges and faculties, is:

To set educational, professional and clinical standards for the specialty, thus encouraging good medical practice and standards of care
Develop and pilot methods to demonstrate a practitioner’s fitness to practice, both professional conduct and clinical competence, against the specialty standards
To be able to provide assistance to individuals that are struggling to provide supporting information to demonstrate fitness to practice
To have a system which will enable early identification of colleagues in difficulty throughout the 5 year cycle both at a local, regional and national level so that remedial action either locally or via the college can be implemented at the appropriate level
Facilitate approving, obtaining and recording of relevant high quality CPD in line with the requirements of revalidation

The College has established a Revalidation subcommittee of the Professional Standards Committee, under the direction of the Revalidation Chair Dr Gillian Bryce, to continue and complete specific work streams as well as develop a quality assurance framework for revalidation.

This committee will continue to develop several work streams including:

Developing guidance about the Specialty Standards Framework
Piloting the specialty elements of Revalidation
Developing appropriate multi-source feedback and patient feedback tools
Establishing e-learning assessments
Producing specialty specific guidance about appraisal
Quality Assuring the revalidation process
Develop a system of support for remedial problems/doctors in difficulty including local, regional and national support
E-portfolio and WBA development
Developing revalidation guidance for patients
‘Orphan groups’– there are a number of doctors in the specialty that do not work in the NHS who are EM doctors, these areas need to be identified so advice can be given regarding revalidation
Providing detailed revalidation information on RCEM website for Fellows and Members
Developing CPD modules appropriate for supporting revalidation.

The subcommittee has Revalidation Advisers from each National/Regional area.

Service Design and Configuration Committee

Chair – Ed Smith
This committee supports members and fellows involved in emergency department service design and configuration.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine is dedicated to achieving the highest standards of practice and patient care. Designing and delivering services is at the heart of delivering these standards. The Service Design & Configuration Committee works to support this.

Within these pages you can find:

Current key issues around service delivery
System integration and service reconfiguration
Commissioning and funding EDs
Delivering quality in the ED
Workforce including sustainable working
ED design
ED crowding (includes operational flow, and exit block)

For any enquiries about service design and delivery please contact Sam McIntyre: Sam.Mcintyre@rcem.ac.uk

Sustainable Working Practices Committee

Creating successful, satisfying and sustainable careers in Emergency Medicine

Key guidance

NEW: ACP Wellbeing & Sustainable Working (January 2021)
NEW: Supporting the psychological wellbeing of ED staff through Covid and beyond
Wellness Compendium iBook (December 2020)
When a Colleague Dies (November 2020)
EMPOWER: Returning to EM Clinical Practice, Skills Maintenance, Future Professional and Personal Development (October 2019)
EMPOWER: A Practical Guide to Flexible Working and Good EM Rota Design (October 2019)
EMPOWER: A Practical Guide for EM Clinical and Non Clinical Managers (April 2019)
EMPOWER: A guide to engage and retain your established EM staff (September 2018)
Caring for doctors, caring for patients: How to transform UK healthcare environments to support doctors and medical students to care for patients (GMC, Nov 2019)
Meeting the challenge of reducing stress and building resilience in the NHS workforce (HEE, Apr 2019)
Support for doctors (AoMRC 2019)
Return to Practice Guidance 2017 revision (AoMRC 2017)
Summary guidance for Clinical Directors and Executive Boards
Summary guidance for trainees, SAS doctors and Consultants in Emergency Medicine
Report: Creating successful, satisfying and sustainable careers in Emergency Medicine
RCEM position statement on sustainable senior doctor working patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic

The College has developed this important strategy to improve the working lives of clinicians working in Emergency Departments in the UK. The guidance documents are specifically aimed to help guide Clinical Directors of Emergency Medicine, clinicians, employers and commissioners of emergency healthcare.

Key elements

Work patterns: For Emergency Medicine doctors these need to be well structured, sustainable and satisfying. The College has produced suggested solutions for working practices especially for out of hours and night time working by senior medical decision makers through annualised job planning. Recommendations on the ways in which annualised job plans can enhance working patterns are described.
Models of ED function: These have changed over the years and the approaches that clinicians must consider both working in the ED in different roles, how to describe the specialty and profile it to others is vitally important.
Flexible careers: Working practices for females and males in Emergency Medicine are changing and the specialty lends itself to allowing better work-life balance and integration as well as enhancing portfolio careers for those choosing to work less than full time.
Decades of clinical life: The ways in which careers can be developed pro-actively through each decade of a clinical career to maintain satisfaction and longevity are described.
Team working and leadership: A range of tips on how to optimise your team and leadership skills as well as better develop these skills in members of your team are described.
Maintaining well being: Creating tailored strategies to maintain well being and embedding them into daily practice are critical to career sustainability. Equally important is the need to recognise early features of chronic stress to prevent possible burnout in colleagues. This is an area that the College will continue to expand on in the future.
Valuing trainees: Much formal work is ongoing via Health Education England, the GMC and other agencies in this area. In our guidance, a range of top tips from trainees and trainers provides an overview of things that cost little and yet can have a dramatic impact on the future career paths of the young trainee.

What next?

We urge all working in Emergency Departments or responsible for emergency care systems to take the time to read the strategy. Then ensure that:

You act upon those components that you can directly influence.
Give the strategy to your Clinical Director (if you are not one) and your team. Decide upon the areas of the strategy that most apply to you and devise a local implementation plan.
Decide how you can best influence the Executive team and non-Executive team at your Trust/ Hospital Board as well as commissioners to firstly read and then act upon the strategy.
Devise a timetable to monitor progress.

Anti-bullying

Our members’, and all healthcare professionals’, workplaces should be free from all forms of bullying and harassment. Our Sustainable Working Practice Committee along with other RCEM committees are developing work to tackle bullying in the workplace and in our view the working environment should allow healthcare professionals to work with dignity and respect, without the unacceptable threat of bullying and harassment. Bullying and harassment undermines physical and mental health and can lead to reduced performance and increased sickness absence.

Below are some useful resources from RCEM and other organisations that are there to support you.

RCEM

RCEM position statement on bullying and harassment (RCEM, April 2019)
EMPOWER:A Wellness Compendium for EM (Updated June 2019)

RSCed

An Alliance Against Bullying, Undermining and Harassment in the NHS (RCSEd, 2019)
Are you a bully? (RCSed, 2019)

GMC

BMA

Bullying and harassment: how to address it and create a supportive and inclusive culture (BMA, 2019)

Civility saves lives

Visit the civility saves lives page

National Guardian’s Office

Visit freedom to speak up page

Wellness resources

Resources

Improving the mental health of staff in hospital emergency departments (MIND, 2019)
Taking care of you evaluation (MIND, 2019)
EMTA Rest and Sleep full resources
Staying safe this website offers free resources for anyone distressed, thinking about suicide, or worried about someone else.
ED Spa introduction by Laura Howard – RCEM are proud to be working with Dr Laura Howard on the exciting and innovative new ED Spa. The ED Spa is a safe space, where practitioners can drop their guard and be real about the challenges they face.
Second victim support – this website seeks to help second victims find evidence based support

Blogs & videos

Key messages

Looking after your body – be active
Looking after your mind – keep learning and take notice
Connecting with people – invest in relationships and give

The ED Spa works on the principle of 5 elements of well-being:

Connect: Take time to invest in meaningful relationships with family, friends, colleagues and communities. Strong, meaningful relationships will encourage and support you.
Be Active: Play sport, walk, run, dance, garden, cycle, swim and many more. Find the thing you enjoy that gets you active.
Give: Be grateful, be kind, do something nice for a friend or a stranger.
Keep learning: Learn a new skill, find a hobby or take on a new challenge.
Take notice: Pay attention and be in the moment, notice how you are feeling.

More information on the principles of the ED Spa and how to create one in your own ED ware coming over the next few months. You can also follow or contact the ED Spa on twitter.

Great wellness organisations

Contact Information

Please contact these committees via email to Sam McIntyre

Address: The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Octavia House, 54 Ayres Street, London, SE1 1EU.

Psychologically Informed Policy & Practice (PiPP)

The mental health and retention of frontline clinicians in emergency medicine are urgent areas of priority to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM). The Psychologically Informed Policy and Practice development project (PIPP) aims to understand and begin to address some of the key issues that underpin these pressing problems, starting by meeting with key stakeholders and planning for change.

The challenges of COVID-19 have shone a spotlight on an already stretched workforce. This has had a considerable psychological impact on staff and has resulted in many staff considering reduced hours, changing careers or retiring early (RCEM, 2021). Previous research, that investigated the experiences and needs of emergency medicine doctors, has established sources of distress in the workforce and derived an empirically grounded model of psychological care (Daniels et al. 2021) that encompasses some of the basic needs which are unmet and a source of distress and frustration for emergency medicine clinicians.

This project will involve a collaboration between University of Bath, UKRI fundings body and RCEM, and will be led by Dr Jo Daniels (j.daniels@bath.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist at the University of Bath, with research assistance from Milly Robinson. This project will be delivered as part of a secondment to RCEM, and during this time, we aim to work with clinicians from all professions and grades to gather and analyse data to inform the development of policy and a care pathway, including drawing on our own programme of research, and work done in collaboration with the TERN network (CERA) COVID-19 Emergency Responsiveness Assessment ⋆ TERN (ternresearch.co.uk)

Hear more about the research programme to date here, in a brief animation:
CoCCo Study – towards a model of psychological care in frontline doctors – YouTube

Quality in Emergency Care Committee

Chair – Dr Simon Smith

The Quality in Emergency Care Committee (QECC) is focussed on achieving a consistently high standard of care in all UK Emergency Departments, placing the specialty firmly at the centre of the current “quality agenda”. This will ensure that Emergency Departments continue to receive the resources they need, and are recognised for excellence in clinical care as well as time standards.

The committee aims to provide regular information and useful communications to Emergency Departments, supporting clinical quality and service improvement, providing guidance and administering relevant national audits.

Please note that until April 2014, the committee was named the Clinical Effectiveness Committee.

Objectives

To develop Consensus Based Good Practice Statements for the specialty of Emergency Medicine
To set and monitor standards of Clinical Care, Best Practice and Clinical Procedures in Emergency Departments
To produce audit tools for Emergency Departments that will encourage uniform data collection and enable audit to be conducted in a systematic way
To develop and disseminate patient safety strategies for the specialty of Emergency Medicine
To develop and maintain the clinical effectiveness section of the RCEM website
To advise the NHS, DOH and other relevant organisations regarding the IT requirements for emergency medicine, both nationally and locally.
To advise the NHS, DOH, CQC, the Royal Colleges and other national bodies who have an interest in the quality of care and risk management in Emergency Departments.

RCEM Quality Strategy – Part A (January 2022)

Other Committees

The work of the QECC is split between a number of subcommittees. Please clink on the sections below for more information.

+ Best Practice Sub-committee

Chair – Dr James France

Objectives

To develop consensus based best practice statements for the speciality of Emergency Medicine
To advise the NHS, DOH, HCC, the Royal Colleges and other national bodies who have an interest in good clinical practice in Emergency Departments.
To develop and maintain the best practice section of the College website.
The subcommittee has produced many excellent best practice guidelines which can be downloaded from the College Guidance page.

The subcommittee also reviews and endorses guidelines from other organisations that are relevant to Emergency Medicine. See the External Guidance page.

Many Emergency Departments have shared locally developed guidelines to help exchange best practice. These can be viewed on the Local Guidance page.

Find out more.

+ Safer Care Sub-committee

Chair – Dr Emma Redfern.

The QEC Safer Care subcommittee has been established to identify key themes and markers for patient safety, and develop and disseminate patient safety and risk management strategies for the specialty of Emergency Medicine (EM). The subcommittee will ensure that the College considers the safety of patients in all aspects of its work at all levels; National, Regional and Departmental.

Regular safety alerts and newsflashes are produced and distributed to ED safety leads. If you have any queries about safety in the emergency department, you can reach the administrator and committee Chair by emailing safety@rcem.ac.uk

+ Quality Assurance and Improvement Sub-committee

Chair – Dr Elizabeth Saunders.

The committee designs and runs three national clinical audits of emergency medicine practice each year, and maintains RCEM’s clinical standards.

Find out more about clinical audit, quality improvement and clinical standards.

+ Invited Service Review Committee

Chair – Dr Ian Higginson.

RCEM undertakes reviews of emergency care services at the invitation of NHS organisations. A service review can help a failing ED to become good, and a good ED to become excellent.

Find out more

+ Mental Health Sub-committee

Chair – Dr Catherine Hayhurst.

This subcommittee works to progress and promote emergency mental health care.

Find out more.

+ Major Trauma Sub-committee

Chair – Dr Jon Jones.

To develop and promote consensus based best practice on major trauma.

Find out more.

+ Toxicology Sub-committee

Chair – Dr Johann Grundlingh.

To promote the latest evidence and develop consensus based best practice on toxicology.