The UK’s first ever perioperative care ‘Green Paper'

We’re delighted to announce today that the Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC) has started work on the UK’s first ever Green Paper on perioperative care. 

Our Green Paper project is a nine-month programme of consultation and research about how to advance the perioperative care agenda. It aims to draw CPOC’s diverse community of partners together around a shared set of priorities for change and a vision for the future. 

The project will draw on a wide evidence base, building on work already happening within CPOC, our partner organisations and across the entire health and care sector. We will also reach out to our community of thousands of health professionals and patients to generate new evidence that will enable us to develop future policy and make the best possible case for change.

Based on an initial consultation with representatives from CPOC’s partner organisations, we’ll be exploring the following 5 major themes in the Green Paper:

• Why prioritise perioperative care now? – this theme will explore our case for action and assemble our best arguments to decision-makers for why perioperative care matters now
• Where are we now? – this theme will map the progress we have made in delivering perioperative approaches within the NHS, while also looking at attitudes towards perioperative care
• The next five years – this theme will explore our top short-term challenges and opportunities and identify a clear set of priorities for CPOC to campaign for 
• The NHS at 100 – when the NHS turns 100 in 2048, what will perioperative care look like and be delivering for patients? This section will aim to spark a dialogue about the long-term future of perioperative care
• Innovation and Transformation funding – this section will put together a proposal for a ‘Perioperative Care Innovation and Transformation Fund,’ laying out the key programmes we would like to see funded, what we think they can achieve, and how much they will cost. This will form the basis of our lobbying programme in the lead-up to the next Comprehensive Spending Review. 

The Green Paper will be published in the Autumn. But between then and now we’ll be doing a lot of interesting and engaging activity to help inform the development of these 5 themes. 

Get involved

That is where you come in! We can’t deliver this Green Paper without the active participation and help of everyone working to deliver better patient-centred care. 

If you would like to get involved with this project, then please consider joining our informal ‘sounding board’ of healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers. The kinds of things we’ll be looking for your help with include:

• Giving us your views as we develop our policy thinking, e.g. by taking surveys, feeding back on draft papers or reports, testing our messaging, and helping us plug our evidence gaps or prioritise what we explore further
• Championing our work on social media and to your personal and professional networks. We’ll be regularly updating on this project using the hashtag #CPOCGreenPaper – retweets very welcome!
• Blogging for us to share your experiences, reflecting on new findings, and informing the public about this work.
• Attending any workshops or events we may host as part of the consultation work for this project

If that sounds like fun to you, please email CPOCgreenpaper@rcoa.ac.uk  Thank you so much for any help you are able to give. And be sure to check back on our CPOC Policy Page for the latest updates and consultation opportunities