Thursday, November 30, 2006

Chapter 12 - The Future of the NHS


This is a summary of chapter 12 - the future of anaesthetics. It was written by Dr Peter Simpson, President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists with special interests in training, examinations, assessment and accreditation of doctors and anaesthetists. He is President of the European Society of Anaesthesiology

In this chapter he discusses the importance of anaesthetics, highlighting that with this speciality is involved in 65% of all hospital admissions!

He focuses on how to plan ahead for the future and the requirement of having enough trained staff. He discusses the difficulties in projecting workforce requirements, in terms of gender, nationality or indeed the way in which they wish to work is challenging. Despite the increased intake into UK medical schools, which will take time to percolate through the system, the 70+% female intake will undoubtedly influence things. Also, the 50% overseas graduates currently in anaesthetic training are extremely welcome, but this needs to be considered in the diversity of workforce planning.

To comment further on this chapter - please feel free to post a comment.

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