The Royal College of Emergency Medicine held its Annual General Meeting this evening (26 September 2023) at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow.
The AGM took place at the end first day of RCEM’s Annual Scientific Conference which has covered a range of clinical subjects and learning will continue until Thursday. For those who have missed the events, you will be able to watch content on demand later, details of which will be available here after the event.
The AGM featured updates from the College President Dr Adrian Boyle, Chief Executive Officer Gordon Miles and Treasurer Dr Scott Hepburn. Members were able to attend in person and via a dedicated members link which also allowed those joining remotely to cast votes electronically.
Dr Boyle was first up and provided a summary of the work of the College during 2022 – highlighting the progress that has been made influencing for positive change on behalf of RCEM’s more than 11,000 members.
He mentioned the impact the College’s Policy team has had informing and educating MPs and policy makers. The College’s GreenED initiative was praised as was RCEMLearning which Dr Boyle described as the College’s ‘jewel in the crown’.
Dr Boyle then shared RCEM’s medal winners for 2023 who are:
The Alison Gourdie Medals for 2023:
Dr Joshua Davison – FRCEM SBA & OSCE and Dr Ronald Manuhwa – MRCEM SBA & OSCE
The Luka Randic medal for 2023:
Dr Christopher McCoy – FRCEM SBA & OSCE
The William Rutherford medal for 2023:
Dr Richard McQuillan – FRCEM SBA & OSCE
The Manjeet Singh Riyat medal for 2023:
Dr Anju Menon – FRCEM SBA & OSCE
Doctor Clifford Mann President’s Medal for 2023:
Dr Christopher Moulton
Other College medals for 2023:
Next to take the stage was RCEM CEO Gordon Miles, who spoke candidly about the pressures and impact the tough global economic situation has had on the College.
Describing how it has had to ‘absorb significant [cost] increases and faced a real squeeze’ which resulted in a deficit budget for the first time in 10 years. He then went on to detail all the positive work the college has delivered – thanking the army of volunteers from across the country who help to achieve this.
The final presentation was by RCEM treasurer Dr Scott Hepburn, who started by reminding the audience of the challenges that 2022 held as the College transition from lockdown to a hybrid working environment.
He also reflected on the impact of rising global inflation had on the organisation and gave more detail about the College’s finances – a report on which is contained in the Annual Report and Accounts (from page 106).
He explained that in 2022 the College ended the year with a deficit of £164,000 which is expected to increase to a deficit of just over £400,000 for 2023 and the College was working to identify efficiencies to help reduce this.
Dr Hepburn then spoke about how the formula that was introduced in 2020 which had meant that member subscription costs were capped at two percent was ‘no longer viable’ given what the economy has experienced over the past two years.
As a result AGM members were asked to vote on two issues:
Although the votes were carried at the AGM, they will not be confirmed until they have been checked and verified, and once this has been done the outcome will be announced over the coming days. This is standard procedure, to ensure all those who voted were eligible to do so.
RCEM President Dr Boyle concluded proceedings by announcing the date of the next AGM which will take place on 8 October 2024 in Gateshead.
You can read all questions raised during the session which did not get answered at the time here:
Supplementary questions from the AGM
