Intensive care medicine gains college status

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By Sarah Lowden

Intensive care medicine in the UK now has a college of its own to represent the specialty independently of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

It is hoped the move will allow the specialty to have a “stronger united voice” to campaign for staff and resources.

Since 2010, the specialty has been represented by the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) under the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA).

“It is much easier to advocate from a position of strength than from a lower position,” said Dr Jack Parry-Jones, the faculty's dean and the college's first president.

He said the new status demonstrated the “specialty has grown up”.

The new College of Intensive Care Medicine (CoICM), which officially opens on Wednesday 1 July, represents doctors and wider multidisciplinary teams who care for patients whose lives are often in immediate danger, across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

The CoICM inherits the work of the FICM and is now responsible for the running of the FFICM Fellow exam (soon to become FCICM), the training curriculum, advising on recruitment and publishing Guidelines for the Provision of Intensive Care Services (GPICS) – the national reference standard for how UK intensive care units are staffed and run.