Strategy and vision

Our five-year commitment

Here at RCoA we are committed to safe and effective patient-centred care. It is essential that this care is delivered by a well-trained, supported and valued workforce, and our five-year commitment will help to deliver this.

Download our Strategic Plan 2022-2027

Our strategy

We are excited to be launching our new strategy for 2022-2027. Our five-year commitment and vision combines strategic aims with core values.

Creating certainty

We need to be agile and adept in supporting and training clinicians in the fields of anaesthesia, pain medicine and intensive care, whatever the circumstances – and this has never been more evident following the pandemic.

Due to the pandemic and other mounting pressures, we have at least a 1,400 shortfall in consultant and SAS anaesthetists in the UK, along with a shortage of training places. This is against a backdrop of almost six million patients awaiting surgery.

Therefore, our new strategy aims to provide you, the professionals in our specialities, with the tools and support you need, to be able to look after your own and each other’s welfare and to care for your patients.

Our commitment to our members

We will continue to advocate at all levels to make this a reality. This will be from the individual patient wondering if surgery is right for them, through to championing our workforce at the highest decision-making levels in government.

Most importantly we must remain truly connected to our membership. We need to listen and respond to what is important for our members and our staff, so that collectively we can be the best we can be.

We need to stay to financially strong, so that we have the resources to follow through on our commitments. Our five-year plan will provide the focus we need to achieve these aims for 2022–2027, building in the vision, agility and compassion that recent history has shown are so important for the College’s work, for our members, our staff and for our patients.

Our vision

Our vision for 2022–2027 is safe, more effective patient-centred care, delivered by a well-trained, supported and valued workforce.

We will achieve our vision by:

Taking an integrated approach to our specialties: anaesthesia, pain medicine, and intensive care medicine
Delivering strategic aims and acting on our values
Being mindful of our responsibilities to patients, the public, our members, our staff and resources
Securing the future of the College through our organisational planning.