1.30 pm
Coffee and Registration
2.00 pm
Medical threats in a changing environment
Professor Dame Parveen Kumar DBE, Emerita Professor of Medicine and Education, Barts and the London, Queen Mary University of London. Ambassador to the UK Health Alliance for Climate change
Talk Synopsis:
The world is currently facing one of the biggest threats to health.
With climate change and temperatures predicted to rise above 2 degrees, the effects on health are inevitable. New diseases will emerge along with old diseases re-emerging. It is not inconceivable that malaria will become endemic in this country again. Air pollution causing respiratory problems, droughts causing lack of food and starvation, floods causing water borne diseases, will all have a massive impact on health. The question is whether we can do anything about this?
Learning objectives:
- Climate change and its consequences
- New diseases
- Any mitigating factors
2.30 pm
Critically revisiting ‘access to health and social care’ as a social determinant of health
Professor Sara Ryan, Professor of Social Care, Manchester Metropolitan University - DUE TO ILLNESS THIS TALK WILL NOT TAKE PLACE
3.00 pm
Facing Professional and Clinical Challenges for the Future
Professor Sir Pali Hungin OBE, Emeritus Professor of General Practice, Newcastle Univeristy
Talk Synopsis:
Medicine and doctors are at a crucial point, possibly facing the greatest paradigm shift in their roles and in the possibilities of medical science since the advent of modern medicine. Our roles are challenged: the arrival of digitisation, the democratisation of information, the changing relationship with people and patients and the commodification of health care are all very evident. Continuity and relationship-based care is increasingly rare: seeing the same doctor (or patient), a basic tenet of the traditional role of the clinician, is becoming unusual. Where does this leave us, doctors, especially in a world of bewildering social and scientific advances? The discrepancy between our initial motivation to study medicine and the harsher reality of fragmented care and even our own frequently fragmented and challenged professional lives is causing many to quit, emigrate or burn out. Are we prepared for the future?
Learning Objectives:
- To review the role of the doctor in a fast moving scientific and sociological shifts.
- To reflect on how the doctor might prepare for adapting to the new, fast changing environment.
- To review and to be aware of advances in clinical medicine, particularly in digitisation, genomics, personalised medicine and the role of new non-doctor professionals.
3.30 pm
Coffee
4.00 pm
TELFORD MEMORIAL LECTURE to be given by: Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Director UCL Institute of Equity
Social justice and health equity
Talk Synopsis:
Taking action to reduce health inequalities is a matter of social justice. In developing strategies for tackling health inequalities we need to confront the social gradient in health not just the difference between the worst off and everybody else. There is clear evidence when we look across countries that national policies make a difference and that much can be done in cities, towns and local areas. But policies and interventions must not be confined to the health care system; they need to address the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. The evidence shows that economic circumstances are important but are not the only drivers of health inequalities. Tackling the health gap will take action, based on sound evidence, across the whole of society.
Professor Marmot received the Outstanding Contribution to Health award for working to reduce health inequalities. His understanding of health inequalities, and what to about them was set out in his book, The Health Gap.
He is the author of several landmark reports on the subject. Fair Society Healthy Lives: the Marmot Review, commissioned by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, outlined evidence-based strategies for reducing health inequalities in England, while Health Equity in England: Marmot Review 10 Years On, published in February 2020, found that health inequalities had widened over 10 years, with declining life expectancy for the poorest 10% of women.
The Build Back Fairer: The Covid 19 Marmot Review, found that pre-existing inequalities led to a higher death toll in England, while a later report for Greater Manchester showed that local mortality rates from Covid-19 were 25% higher than in the country as a whole. Those reports set out the practical steps needed to build back fairer after the pandemic or, in the current political jargon, to level up.
5.00 pm
Close
This symposium has been approved by the Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom for 2 category 1 (external) CPD credit(s)