The College has a responsibility to provide a representative on each Advisory Appointments Committee for the medical specialties. This responsibility is taken very seriously and the College’s processes have been reviewed to see if they can be improved further, particularly in the context of Foundation Trusts. A panel of Fellows has been established, who are prepared to commit to supporting the College in this role. Such a system will enable the College to provide representatives more effectively and give Fellows a specific way of helping the College to fulfil its obligations; every effort will be made to ensure that unreasonable demands are not made, and that the workload is evenly spread amongst representatives.

It may be helpful for you to know that the revised NHS Good Practice Guidelines state that “Trusts should make every effort to release medical and dental practitioners to attend as members of AACs and should give a clear explanation of the reasons to the recruiting Trust if this is not possible.” If you have not already done so, the College would like to invite you to nominate yourself as a potential representative on AAC’s, by registering on-line. You would need to make a commitment to, wherever possible, respond positively to requests to serve as a representative, and it is anticipated that on average representatives would attend 3 AACs per year (although that depends on the number of representatives available).

You would also need to ensure that you have received equal opportunities training and keep this up to date. To apply, please go to the front page of the College website www.rcplondon.ac.uk and under "Quick Links" on the left hand menu, click on "AAC Registration" After entering your password you will be asked to enter the days of the week you prefer and whether you have undertaken diversity awareness (equal opportunities) training. If you have any difficulties with this please let Linda Counter at the RCP know (Manager AACs and Regional Offices, Tel: 0207 935 1174 ext 225, or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).