There may also be a need for regular audit by managers, particularly in private hospitals, and the RCOG can specify appropriate outcomes to audit. Patient satisfaction surveys should be included. We recommend that the RCOG should work towards service accreditation. It should ensure that mechanisms are in place to review the work of individual consultants as well as looking at the service as a whole. If problems become severe enough to be reported to hospital managers, they now feel under pressure to suspend the doctor concerned pending investigation.
Suspension can exacerbate problems.
Doctors under suspension sometimes approach the RCOG for support but they have to be told that the College is unable to intervene. For problems which cannot be solved within the team, there may be ways in which the RCOG could help. The RCOG could set up a network of senior clinicians who can be called on for advice by both managers and clinicians. The RCOG could also set up a mechanism for mediation in disputes between clinicians or between managers and clinicians. The disadvantage would be that if a problem is not solved, the College may be drawn into further stages of the dispute, possibly including litigation.