Patient safety, quality assurance and accountability are rightly mentioned in the Department of Health and Social Care’s response as key to the development of the Medical Associate groups. Although the Surgical Colleges and Speciality Associations can help to support this and give reassurance to both the practitioner and the public, the lack of a formal register of SCPs leads to difficulty in monitoring activity to ensure consistency in education, training and setting of standards throughout Trusts and Health Boards in the UK.

The lack of a register has been detrimental to the SCP community as the estimate given for SCPs given by the Professional  Standards Authority in their response to the Government’s consultation document on statutory regulation for SCPs was a gross underestimate of the true number of SCPs not only in post but across all specialities.

This register of SCPs is an excellent start in addressing this. It is also a good opportunity to bring practitioners up to date with educational  events for CPD , a database of SCPs for practitioners to use for networking as well as creating a body of SCPs  who will support the Colleges desire to see statutory regulation for SCPs come to fruition.

Many good things come from the hard work of  dedicated individuals and congratulation for getting this long awaited development up and running.

Charlie Auld  MD DA FRCSEd

Lead for Faculty of Perioperative Care RCSEd