Royal College of Surgeons of England President, Professor Neil Mortensen, visited Manchester and Liverpool in early 2023 to meet with surgeons of all career stages across the region and to speak at an event on surgical research. The College’s Outreach Manager, Tom Saunders, tells us more about the President’s visit.

There are more than 30,000 members of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) across the globe, with a large group here in the North West. Being based at the RCS England Outreach Hub at the University of Manchester, I’m very lucky to get to spend every day working with fantastic surgeons across the North of England, the Midlands and Scotland.

Part of our role as a College is to understand the issues facing our members in their professional lives, and to do everything we can to overcome them. We advocate with government and the NHS on behalf of surgeons, develop training courses and exams that educate and assess surgical skills, and increasingly are working to make surgery a more diverse and inclusive profession.

Working from our Outreach Hub in Manchester, we achieve this by arranging for our President, Professor Neil Mortensen, a Colorectal Surgeon from Oxford, to visit different parts of the country and to meet with surgeons and learn more about pioneering work being done in their practice. As a proud Mancunian with roots in Liverpool, it was fantastic to pull together these events.

In late February and early March 2023, Professor Mortensen visited Manchester University Foundation NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) and Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LUFT). With our time at MFT, we visited Manchester Royal Infirmary and Wythenshawe Hospital to understand the structure of surgical services across major trauma, cancer, transplants, and children’s surgery, as well as the innovative work being done at the Manchester Surgical Skills & Simulation Centre where clinical teams train.

Professor Mortensen also spoke at an evening reception for members based on surgical research alongside Director of the NWSTC, Professor Cliona Kirwan. The event was hosted by our Regional Director and NIHR lead for surgical research in Greater Manchester, Miss Gemma Faulkner.

After Manchester, Professor Mortensen visited the recently opened Royal Liverpool University Hospital and the Aintree University Hospital, both part of LUFT. Again, it was clear that there is a fantastic community of surgeons across the region with a proud history of surgical research – there have been at least 12 RCS England Research Fellows in Liverpool alone!

This visit both recognised the wonderful work of the surgical community in the region, whilst also helping us as a College speak for the profession when in the room with decision makers in the NHS and government. It was fantastic to be in Manchester and Liverpool and I’m sure there will be more visits in the future.

We’re really pleased to hear from surgeons from across the North West and beyond, so please do get in touch if you have any questions about the College: OutreachNorth@rcseng.ac.uk.

Related