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Health Education England seeking views on future role of doctors

by Rachel Carter
5 September 2019

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Health Education England (HEE) is asking professionals to share their views on what the future role, skills and expectations of doctors should look like.

The organisation’s call for evidence is seeking views from the health service, multi-professional regulatory and professional membership bodies and clinical professionals.

The findings will be used to develop a national consultation on ‘the future doctor’ for patients and the public to respond to, which will be launched in November 2019.

‘Changes to medical education’ 

HEE was asked to undertake this work as part of the NHS Interim People Plan, which sets out how the NHS workforce will be recruited and supported over the next decade.

The aim of the call for evidence and consultation is to establish a clear view on what the future role of the doctor should be within the context of a multi-disciplinary team, and to consider how doctors interact with the evolving roles of other healthcare professionals.

The findings will be used to develop advice on changes that need to be made to undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, to meet these future requirements.

‘Holistic view’

Professor Wendy Reid, executive director of education and quality and medical director at HEE, said: ‘This is an important programme of work as we want a holistic view of what our clinicians will be doing in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time. How might we train them? And how do we ensure we have a workforce that suits patients needs in the future?

‘We are working together with a number of stakeholder partners to help transform the workforce and ensure the NHS is the best place for anyone to work.’

The call for evidence will close on Thursday, 26 September.