RCGP at 70 The College celebrates its 70th anniversary in November, and a range of national and local Faculty events are being planned throughout the year across the whole of the UK to mark the event – including the joint RCGP/ Wonca Europe conference in June.
While the RCGP in 2022 looks very different to how it did in 1952, our mission remains the same: Cum Scientia Caritas – to deliver compassionate care with knowledge. When the NHS was set up in 1948, general practice was in decline and struggling to cope. Matters came to a head following the publication of the critical Collings report in 1950, which highlighted the perilous state of British general practice, with demoralised doctors, hurried work, and poor facilities. It was against this background that a few influential GPs began to develop the idea of a college. These doctors shared a belief that what was needed was an academic body to support good standards of practice, education and research, such as already existed for other medical specialties. Such a college, they argued, could provide leadership for the many doctors who were passionate about working for better standards in general practice, and make it possible to attract young doctors of the highest quality.
”The College is its members and we are proud to be representing family doctors, both across the UK and internationally, 70 years on“ Dame Clare Gerada, RCGP President
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John Hunt (left), Fraser Rose (right), founding members of the RCGP
In 1951, Dr John Hunt and Dr Fraser Rose published a joint letter in the British Medical Journal and The Lancet seeking support. The response from grassroots GPs was overwhelmingly enthusiastic – but it was far from plain sailing, with a lot of resistance and hostility, including from other Royal Medical Colleges.
Original 1951 letter to The Lancet by Drs Hunt and Rose
Later that year Hunt, Rose and a small group of doctors met to form a Steering Committee. At its final session in November 1952, nine months after its inception, the College of General Practitioners was legally constituted. Its Foundation Council comprised just one woman, Annis Gillie, who went on to become the College’s first female Chair in 1959 and President in 1964. In 1972, we were granted our Royal Charter and became the Royal College of General Practitioners. Today, we are the UK’s largest Medical Royal College with a thriving community of over 54,000 members. As general practice has changed over the past 70 years, so the College membership has changed.
In 1952, under 10% of general practitioners were women – today there are more women GPs than men. A third of College members are women under the age of 45 and International Medical Graduates make up 29% of our membership. Unlike other medical Royal Colleges, the RCGP has a Chair and a President, and we have had six women Chairs so far, including three in succession – Clare Gerada, Maureen Baker and Helen Stokes-Lampard from 2010 to 2019 – meaning that the College had a female Chair for almost a decade, something no other medical Royal College has achieved. To mark the start of our 70th anniversary year, 30 Euston Square is hosting an exhibition – Women at the heart of general practice – exploring the roles that women have played in general practice through the College’s history and earlier. Dr Mayur Lakhani became the first Chair from an ethnic minority community in 2004 and President in 2017. Mayur is a British Indian whose family fled to the UK as refugees to escape Idi Amin’s brutal regime in Uganda, 50 years ago this year. We have also had a Royal President – our patron, the late Duke of Edinburgh became President for a year to mark our 50th anniversary in 2002. Prince Philip visited the College to formally open our new London headquarters at 30 Euston Square in 2014. 30 Euston Square has been our headquarters since 2012 and is our fourth headquarters. One of its former uses was as the Department of Health and Social Security. The College was based at 14 Princes Gate in Kensington for over 40 years – hence the naming of the Princes Gate room in 30 Euston Square. After the First World War, Princes Gate was offered to the American government as a home for their ambassadors. Eight ambassadors and their families lived there from 1921 to the mid-1950s,
