Joint Specialty Committee for Renal Medicine

What we do

Joint Specialty Committee for Renal Medicine

Members | Current activities | Minutes, reports and documents

This is a standing committee established jointly between the Royal College of Physicians of London and the Renal Association The joint committee is advisory rather than executive, and has accountability to each of its parent bodies. In terms of accountability to the College, it reports to Council through the Medical Specialties Board.

Remit

The Committee is established to ensure that the College is properly briefed on issues in the specialty and the Renal Association is briefed on College plans and policy. It will advise its parent bodies, or other organisations on their behalf, on matters of mutual interest. These will include;

Workforce and training
Setting national standards and agreeing joint guidelines and policy statements
Drawing up specifications for clinical governance in relation to the practice of the specialty
Developing and extending service review
Reviewing ethnic minority health issues on an annual basis
Identifying ethical issues on an annual basis
Continuing professional development for the specialist, including general medicine if necessary
Advice to College or other Working Parties
Any other specific matter of particular relevance to the specialty

In dealing with these issues the Committee will restrict its advice to the context of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The contribution of any Scottish representative on the committee is welcomed, but the Scottish Colleges are not involved in joint ownership or sending items of business direct to the committee.

The Committee may liaise with other organisations as appropriate to share or obtain advice. However the Committee, or any of its members, may not make any public statement or approve any published materials in its own name or that of its parent bodies, except with their approval.

The above are direct statements from the formal remit. In practice, the Royal College has over 20 specialty committees and is therefore able to bring greater influence through common actions on important issues.

Membership and meetings

The Remit and Constitution can be downloaded from the foot of the page. The Committee meets 3 times a year.

Joint Specialty Committee for Renal Medicine
Chair (past president, RA)	John Feehally
Renal Association	Peter Mathieson (President) Kevin Harris (Clinical Vice-President) Caroline Savage (Academic Vice-President) Mun Woo (Nephrology SAS Forum) Andrew Fry (SpR Club representative)
Royal College	President Registrar Mobin Mohteshamzadeh (New Consultants Committee) Susan Frade (Patients & Carers' Network) Phil Willan (Patients & Carers' Network) Simon Davies (Chair, SAC)
Chair, JSC Renal Workforce Planning Group	Phil Mason
Nephrologist 'without portfolio'	John Bradley (Payment by Results) Paul Rylance (National Patient Safety Agency)
Representatives	Richard Baker (BTS) Paul Stevens (BRS) Stephen Morgan (Soc for DGH Nephrologists)
Observers	Christopher Cox [DH Renal Policy Group) Donal O'Donoghue (National Clinical Director Rob Lusuardi (renal specialist commissioner) Brian Junor(Scottish Royal Colleges) Mary McGraw (BAPN)
Contact: Prof John Feehally

Current activities

Guidelines for chronic kidney disease - an initiative jointly with the RCGP to develop management and referral guidelines to ensure appropriate and timely referral of those patients most likely to benefit from specialist management while ensuring improved management of cardiovascular/ progression risk factors in all patients with renal disease in primary and secondary care. The group was chaired by Dr Charlie Tomson. See www.renal.org/ckd and www.renal.org/

Quality Outcomes Framework (QoF) submissions - a new basis for the General Medical Services contract from 2005, under which GPs are paid, offered incentives for meeting a number of quality targets. The JSC put forward a number of proposals for the inclusion in the 2006 revision, including the creation of a new domain, CKD, with four new targets, plus additions to the BP and CKD domains ( the Archive page has more info about the evidence put forward). Several of these were accepted. Further work will be needed in the future. More information about primary care contracting and the GMS contract.

Good medical practice for renal physicians - drafted a specialty-specific section in "Good Medical Practice for Physicians", an RCP document modelled on the GMC document "Good Medical Practice".

Drafting guidance to commissioners on purchasing renal services (Dr Paul Stevens).

“Consultant physicians working with patients” - the renal section in the current (4th edition) of this RCP publication was drafted by Dr John Bradley.

Workforce planning - including the planned expansion of SpR numbers to ensure that by 2010 we have somewhere near adequate numbers of consultant nephrologists to manage the expanding population of patients with ESRF. See also the Training page.

Lectures and Conferences - The Committee also gives advice to the RCP on College Lecturers and Conferences.

The Renal Association

What we do