Welcome from our President
For the Royal College of Obstetricians (RCOG), 2024 was a year of growth, innovation and meaningful progress. Our membership expanded to record numbers, ensuring that more professionals working in obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G) are benefiting from our expertise, resources and support.
Education and training remained at the heart of our mission. The College launched O&G Curriculum 2024, equipping doctors with emerging skills and modernised clinical practices to meet the challenges of the future. We provided more examination places than ever before, helping healthcare professionals worldwide gain essential knowledge and skills to improve standards of care.
We made significant strides in key advocacy and policy areas. In the UK, we advanced our work on maternity safety, tackled racism and bias in the O&G profession, and supported the membership to respond to the climate crisis by helping clinical teams to implement sustainable practices. We also launched an initiative to shape the future of O&G surgical training, exploring the potential of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).
Our global training programmes continued to strengthen the skills of healthcare professionals, ensuring that women – especially in underserved communities – receive the highest standard of care. Beyond training, we championed women’s health rights, campaigning for the decriminalisation of abortion in England, Wales and Scotland. We also urged the UK Government to better support women waiting for gynaecology procedures, and to make sure services that provide them are properly resourced and prioritised.
None of this would be possible without our dedicated global members, volunteers and partners. It is your commitment that drives our impact, and I am incredibly grateful for all that you do. Together, we are shaping a better future for women’s health.
Ranee Thakar
President, RCOG
Welcome from our President
For the Royal College of Obstetricians (RCOG), 2024 was a year of growth, innovation and meaningful progress. Our membership expanded to record numbers, ensuring that more professionals working in obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G) are benefiting from our expertise, resources and support.
Education and training remained at the heart of our mission. The College launched O&G Curriculum 2024, equipping doctors with emerging skills and modernised clinical practices to meet the challenges of the future. We provided more examination places than ever before, helping healthcare professionals worldwide gain essential knowledge and skills to improve standards of care.
We made significant strides in key advocacy and policy areas. In the UK, we advanced our work on maternity safety, tackled racism and bias in the O&G profession, and supported the membership to respond to the climate crisis by helping clinical teams to implement sustainable practices. We also launched an initiative to shape the future of O&G surgical training, exploring the potential of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).
Our global training programmes continued to strengthen the skills of healthcare professionals, ensuring that women – especially in underserved communities – receive the highest standard of care. Beyond training, we championed women’s health rights, campaigning for the decriminalisation of abortion in England, Wales and Scotland. We also urged the UK Government to better support women waiting for gynaecology procedures, and to make sure services that provide them are properly resourced and prioritised.
None of this would be possible without our dedicated global members, volunteers and partners. It is your commitment that drives our impact, and I am incredibly grateful for all that you do. Together, we are shaping a better future for women’s health.
Ranee Thakar
President, RCOG
10,309 candidates sat our three membership examinations – a 27% increase on the pre-pandemic figure of 7,040
More than 2,100 delegates from 76 countries attended the RCOG World Congress 2024 in October in Muscat, Oman
Our webinar programme, which keeps O&G professionals up to date on key topics, attracted around 1,000 registrations per webinar
We delivered 65% of MRCOG examinations outside the UK. This has reduced travel for international candidates who may previously have come to the UK for examinations, lowering carbon emissions.
We trained 20 expert trainers in essential gynaecological skills in Nigeria, who then trained 180 frontline healthcare workers to enhance the quality of gynaecological care for women and girls
The College increased awareness of women’s health in the media by releasing 40 press statements and responding to more than 1,000 media enquiries, covering a broad range of women’s health issues
The four-year Making Abortion Safe (MAS) programme ended in March 2024, having worked with 60 MAS champions across 5 African countries and providing almost 3,000 healthcare professionals with free online training
GOAL ONE
We will develop our membership offering to best meet the needs of our members globally and the women they serve and expand our reach across the international O&G community.
Advancing practice around the world
There are now more obstetricians and gynaecologists trained to the highest standards around the world – which means more women and girls are receiving the highest standards of care. In 2024, membership of the College grew by 4% to 18,178. Our global membership has grown by 19% during the five years of the current strategy.
The College’s membership is truly global with 53% of members based in the UK and 47% in 124 countries around the world.
We welcomed 554 Members and 61 Fellows at nine admission ceremonies, including one in Oman, alongside the RCOG World Congress. When our members join us, they stay with us – annual member retention remained at 96% in 2024.
We carried out a membership survey to help make sure we continue to meet the membership’s needs and to inform the development of a new five-year strategy for the College. Results showed that the College is well regarded by its membership with 70% of respondents rating the College highly. 90% of those surveyed intended to renew membership and 86% said they would recommend us to peers.
The College launched O&G Curriculum 2024 to train doctors in emerging skills and modernised ways of working, ensuring clinical practice is ready for what the future holds. Since its launch, the curriculum has received positive feedback from learners and educators, with over 10,000 people accessing the supporting resources on the RCOG website.
We provided more examination places than ever before in 2024, equipping healthcare professionals with essential knowledge and skills, and improving education, training and standards of care globally. A total of 10,309 candidates sat our three membership examinations – a 27% increase on the pre-pandemic figure of 7,040.
As part of the College’s commitment to improving the examination experience, feedback to all candidates sitting the MRCOG Part 1 and Part 2 examinations was offered. Dedicated champions have been appointed to provide candidates with insights into their performance, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement, to enable them to better prepare for future examinations.
We developed a new set of examiner regulations, which ensure the highest standards are consistently maintained in our examinations. This provides candidates around the globe with a fair, standardised assessment.
To help doctors new to the UK to feel settled, supported and valued, the College worked closely with the NHS on its Induction Programme for International Medical Graduates (IMG). A dedicated RCOG hub for IMGs has been developed to provide information on careers in O&G in the UK.
As part of work to develop and support the membership outside of the UK, the College continued to work hard with the International Representative Committees (IRCs), who provide excellent leadership of our global communities. RCOG International Liaison Groups continued to provide invaluable support to International Medical Graduates, our range of global health projects, the overseas Part 3 examinations and international conferences.
The College’s accreditation programme continues to develop more O&G specialists around the world. Partnerships with international hospitals enable them to become accredited providers of the RCOG speciality training programme.
Programmes at the Corniche Hospital in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Aster Medcity, in Kerala, India, have successfully completed their first year and have achieved accreditation status. The College’s partnership programme with Max Healthcare in Delhi, India, recruited its first 10 trainees in 2024.
To help harness global expertise and talent, while maintaining quality and standards, we continue to demonstrate leadership with the General Medical Council (GMC) Portfolio Pathway. The College achieved 100% compliance with the GMC’s legal and regulatory targets relating to the Pathway, which offers an alternative, flexible way to become a GMC-registered specialist, supporting 24 doctors to become registered in 2024
Providing the training and guidance professionals need to excel
As part of our work to address racism, bias and discrimination in the O&G profession, the College surveyed members to learn more about their experiences.
We reviewed data from across RCOG examinations and training relating to differential attainment (disparities in average educational or career outcomes between different groups of individuals) and considered race equity work happening across other medical colleges.
A Race Equity Project expert advisory group was established to oversee the development of a suite of resources to support race equity across O&G. The findings were published in a Race Equity report.
More than 2,100 delegates from 76 countries attended the RCOG World Congress 2024 in October in Muscat, Oman. The Congress was run in partnership with the Oman Society of O&G. Delegates heard from more than 160 speakers with over 70 hours of content presented across the full range of O&G specialities over the three-day event.
Speakers shared a wealth of O&G scientific research, best practice and knowledge. Over 1,700 scientific abstracts were submitted and the top 500 were published in a special BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology supplement with the top three presenting during the closing plenary session.
Through a range of grants and awards, the College continued to inspire excellence and bring opportunities to an inclusive range of researchers and practitioners around the world. We hosted 18 academic awards in 2024, including for travel, manuscripts, case histories, guest lectures and research fellowships. The College also awarded 17 new Honorary Fellowships, introduced a bursary for two UK-based trainees to travel to the Asia and Oceania Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Congress in South Korea.
16 pieces of new evidence-based guidance and patient information were published, helping members to improve clinical practice, and increase their knowledge and understanding.
The College also published 13 selected patient information resources translated into 11 additional languages widely spoken within the UK, including Romanian, Arabic and Bengali. An innovative animated video was developed to provide advice on consent for women considering a caesarean birth.
We provided core training and continuing professional development for Trainees, Members and the wider O&G community. Over 6,600 people from across the world attended 120 diverse events and courses – up 5% on 2023.
Over 95% of attendees felt that the course or event they attended met their personal development needs. New course topics for 2024 included fetal heart monitoring and improving maternity safety – a human factors approach.
Applications to become a College volunteer increased by 47% in 2024, thanks to improved processes and communication. The support of volunteers from our membership is essential to delivering the College’s work and achieving our mission of improving the health of women and girls globally.
Volunteering is a great way for members to meet other clinicians from across the globe, learn new skills, and make a difference to clinical practice and how patients receive care.
We launched a project to shape the future of O&G surgical training, exploring the role of cutting-edge technologies, such as robotics and AI. This work, in collaboration with women’s health company Hologic UK, aims to lead improvements in surgical training standards, addressing current gaps and future needs of the O&G workforce.
Farah Siddiqui is a Consultant in Fetal and Maternal Medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and a Clinical Fellow for the College.
She’s leading on our work to tackle racism and discrimination in the workplace. Farah shares the impact the work is having in O&G and beyond.
“When we surveyed members about racism in the workplace, the results were harrowing. More than 75% of respondents had either witnessed or experienced racism or discrimination in the workplace in the past year. The impact of that experience was stark, with 60% saying racism or discrimination was affecting their mental health, physical health or relationships at home. Some stated they felt suicidal as a result.
The survey, published in 2024, also showed us that most respondents didn’t report racism at work. Of those that did, only 20% said they had an appropriate response. The majority felt ignored. So even when people were raising their voices, nobody was listening. The team at the College knew that unless we tackled that, we wouldn’t see cultural change.
“No-one should go to work in fear of being victimised”
“We’re developing an ‘anti-racism care package’ to support the workforce. Aimed at leadership, management and employees, the resources cover five key areas: anti-discrimination leadership; diverse and inclusive teams; support for doctors; empowerment; and psychological safety.
A group of 15 doctors from across the UK have worked with the College to research and curate useful resources relating to these areas. These will be used to develop the care package. These doctors have put in a fantastic amount of work, going above and beyond to help, despite how busy they are.
All these doctors had seen discrimination in the workplace. Some of their parents had worked in the NHS and talked about their own experiences of racism. Now, decades later, these doctors are seeing the same things themselves. They felt very passionately, as I do, that no-one should hit a glass ceiling, and no-one should go to work in fear of being bullied or victimised – by patients or colleagues.
“Everyone was united”
“The College organised an event in December 2024 to fine-tune the anti-racism care package. The 15 doctors presented their work to representatives from medical colleges, regulatory bodies, academics, medical directors and health sector stakeholder organisations. It was really well received. Overwhelmingly, people said: ‘Yes, we definitely need this resource.’ Everyone was united.
A lot of work has been done over the years to make things fairer for women accessing services and to reduce health inequalities. But if the workforce is facing racism day to day, it’s harder to make this happen. Our work is helping other organisations see that they also need to make supporting the workforce one of their top priorities.”
Throughout 2025, we will:
Continue to grow the number of skilled obstetricians and gynaecologists across the globe
By increasing the number of candidates sitting the MRCOG Part 1 and Part 2 examinations by a further 5% compared to 2024 levels.
Launch a new Part 3 growth and sustainability project
To meet growing demand, the College will expand capacity of the Part 3 and review the current examination model, making MRCOG examinations more accessible to the global O&G community.
Carry out a survey across the O&G workforce in the UK, to give the College essential insight into professional roles and experiences in the workplace
This will inform College support for people who are already part of the UK’s O&G workforce and those interested in joining from overseas.
Run elections for a new President, five new Vice-Presidents, and 18 new Council members, recruiting skilled professionals to drive forward progress at the College
GOAL TWO
We will leverage our strong brand and world-renowned reputation to develop partnerships and influence UK and international policy to improve women’s health globally.
Improving maternity safety
Supporting the development of solutions to improve maternity safety is a key priority for the College. The RCOG Independent Advisory Group for Maternity Safety has been established to bring together professionals with knowledge and expertise in this area, to share best practice and help address matters of concern for Fellows and Members and the women they serve.
The College is working with staff in nine NHS maternity units to pilot an innovative system to improve and personalise maternity care and reduce the risk of the two most common causes of brain injury during childbirth.
This next phase of the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme tackles: detecting and responding to suspected fetal deterioration during labour; and managing the obstetric emergency of impacted fetal head in caesarean births. Both of these can have a devastating impact on babies and families.
Influencing to improve women’s healthcare
Our Waiting For a Way Forward report was launched at a parliamentary reception, calling for the UK Government to provide better support for women waiting for gynaecology procedures and to ensure these services are properly resourced and prioritised.
The report detailed the devastating impact of gynaecology waiting lists on women and healthcare professionals. It is supported by an interactive tool which provides a visual representation of how long women are waiting, showing national and regional figures and differences according to demographics.
The College was instrumental in securing safe access zones around abortion services, protecting women and medical professionals from harassment. The UK Government brought the zones into force in England and Wales at the end of October 2024. Safe access zones are already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
We continued to work with partners to campaign for the decriminalisation of abortion in England, Wales and Scotland. Currently, a woman can face up to life in prison for ending her own pregnancy. The College focused on trying to secure amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, which made its way through Parliament in early 2024. The Bill was halted by the General Election, but we have maintained our focus on decriminalisation, briefing new MPs and seeking new Parliamentary advocates for the issue.
Several of our key asks for women’s health were reflected in the main parties’ commitments at the General Election. This included the urgent need to tackle disparities in maternity care and address long waiting times for gynaecology care. The asks featured in the College’s election manifesto.
As one of over 200 members of the Inequalities in Health Alliance, we called on the UK Government to introduce a cross-government strategy to reduce health inequalities. This was part of the College’s race equity position statement highlighting the significant impact of poverty and deprivation on women's health and advocating for coordinated efforts to address inequalities
We issued evidence to the House of Lords preterm birth inquiry and contributed to its final report, which calls for urgent action on maternity staffing levels to ensure mothers and babies receive high quality care.
The College also provided significant further evidence and support towards the COVID inquiry and briefed MPs and Peers ahead of multiple debates including on baby loss, the long-term sustainability of the NHS, and delivering maternity services.
Enhancing the quality of gynaecological care for women and girls globally
Almost 3,000 healthcare professionals benefited from the RCOG Making Abortion Safe (MAS) Programme which ended in 2024. Sixty MAS champions across five African countries advocated for changes in policy and practice and developed clinical guidance and educational resources. The programme put national advocacy plans on abortion care into action in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda.
We helped improve the skills and knowledge of non-specialist health providers in Nigeria and Bangladesh as part of our work to build stronger, more resilient health systems. We were awarded a grant of £350,000 to put the Gynaecological Health Matters (GHM) programme into practice in the Nigerian states of Kano and Abuja.
We trained 20 expert trainers in essential gynaecological skills. They then trained 180 frontline healthcare workers to enhance the quality of gynaecological care for women and girls in Nigeria.
In Bangladesh, the government has committed to expanding the GHM programme to another 20 districts from 2025, improving healthcare for more women and girls.
We have created a network of anti-Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) champions in Egypt, including 105 doctors in Cairo and Sohag.
Local clinicians were supported to deliver training that equips health workers with the knowledge and skills to recognise the harm to girls and women caused by this practice. The College is supporting them to become advocates for eradicating this human rights abuse in their local communities.
Raising awareness of women’s health
The College increased awareness of women’s health in the media by releasing 40 press statements and responding to more than 1,000 media enquiries, covering a broad range of women’s health issues. This included menopause, contraception, gynaecological cancer, pelvic floor health, sexual health, and making informed choices.
The RCOG Women’s Network continued to play a vital role in all College activity, including as Lay Examiners, on College Committees and presenting at RCOG events, including World Congress.
Patient involvement was embedded in key College-wide initiatives and research projects including the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit and a new National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded project to develop a Patient Reported Experience Measure for women and people using maternity services.
“Being on the waiting list for gynaecological care is exhausting”
The RCOG Waiting For a Way Forward report was based on survey responses from over 2,000 women, and three patient focus groups. Saschan Fearon-Josephs, 33, is a lay member of the RCOG’s Women’s Network and helped to facilitate the focus groups.
She provides training in hidden health issues to employers and others and was a keynote speaker at the Parliamentary launch of the report. Saschan shared her experience of not getting the timely gynaecology care she needed for everything from endometriosis to pelvic inflammatory disease over the last 14 years.
“Waiting For a Way Forward is full of facts and figures, but behind every one of them is a person who has their own story of how they came to be waiting so long.
This is what I wanted the audience, which included politicians and representatives from NHS England, to know when I spoke at the launch of the report. I wanted them to realise that the decisions they make affect the quality of life and care that the women behind the numbers get access to.
I first got involved with the RCOG Women’s Network four years ago. I didn't want other women to have the experience I had with my reproductive health. Also, the College has done some great work.
Longer wait, more complex problems
Being on the waiting list for gynaecological care is exhausting. It’s like pressing a giant pause button on what you want to do. I had to suspend my university studies because I was in excruciating pain waiting to be treated for torsion (twisting) to my right ovary. I had a cyst that was 20 centimetres. A doctor told me that if it ruptured, I could die of septicaemia.
The longer you're waiting on the list, the more likely you are to develop a secondary condition. When my surgery was delayed for three years because of the pandemic, my fibroids grew to 8 by 16 centimetres each, pushing my stomach into my chest, and creating a hiatus hernia.
“It's important not to marginalise women's voices”
“Despite the circumstances of why everybody was there, it was nice to facilitate the report focus groups and create a space where women felt comfortable sharing their experiences. It's important to not marginalise women's voices in their own collective story.
The report’s findings – for example that 27,671 women have been on the waiting list for over 52 weeks – weren’t shocking to me. We under fund research into women's health and women’s services.
The UK Government has said that 92% of patients will get non-urgent treatment within 18 weeks by 2029. It’s good to say this but we need to think about how we’re going to do it.
I hope to see waiting times drastically reduce and for people to get quicker, more efficient and better quality care.”
Sachan's story: “Being on the waiting list for gynaecological care is exhausting”
The RCOG Waiting For a Way Forward report was based on survey responses from over 2,000 women, and three patient focus groups. Saschan Fearon-Josephs, 33, is a lay member of the RCOG’s Women’s Network and helped to facilitate the focus groups.
She provides training in hidden health issues to employers and others and was a keynote speaker at the Parliamentary launch of the report. Saschan shared her experience of not getting the timely gynaecology care she needed for everything from endometriosis to pelvic inflammatory disease over the last 14 years.
“Waiting for a way forward is full of facts and figures, but behind every one of them is a person who has their own story of how they came to be waiting so long.
This is what I wanted the audience, which included politicians and representatives from NHS England, to know when I spoke at the launch of the report. I wanted them to realise that the decisions they make affect the quality of life and care that the women behind the numbers get access to.
I first got involved with the RCOG Women’s Network four years ago. I didn't want other women to have the experience I had with my reproductive health. Also, the College has done some great work.”
Longer wait, more complex problems
“Being on the waiting list for gynaecological care is exhausting. It’s like pressing a giant pause button on what you want to do. I had to suspend my university studies because I was in excruciating pain waiting to be treated for torsion (twisting) to my right ovary. I had a cyst that was 20 centimetres. A doctor told me that if it ruptured, I could die of septicaemia.
The longer you're waiting on the list, the more likely you are to develop a secondary condition. When my surgery was delayed for three years because of the pandemic, my fibroids grew to 8 by 16 centimetres each, pushing my stomach into my chest, and creating a hiatus hernia.”
“It's important not to marginalise women's voices”
“Despite the circumstances of why everybody was there, it was nice to facilitate the report focus groups and create a space where women felt comfortable sharing their experiences. It's important to not marginalise women's voices in their own collective story.
The report’s findings – for example that 27,671 women have been on the waiting list for over 52 weeks – weren’t shocking to me. We under fund research into women's health and women’s services.
The UK Government has said that 92% of patients will get non-urgent treatment within 18 weeks by 2029. It’s good to say this but we need to think about how we’re going to do it.
I hope to see waiting times drastically reduce and for people to get quicker, more efficient and better quality care.”
Throughout 2025, we will:
Increase the College’s visibility and influence within the United Nations
By taking part in events such as the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and Girls and the 68th World Health Assembly (WHA) and Youth pre-WHA.
Seek new funding to deliver global health projects in low-income countries
This includes new programmes on gynaecological health, access to safe abortion and combatting FGM/C in countries such as Egypt, Nigeria and Rwanda.
Help ensure the 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS in England has a strong focus on tackling waiting lists in elective gynaecology
Improving access to community women’s health services, and supporting maternity services.
Continue to push for the reform of abortion law, taking advantage of legislative opportunities to achieve decriminalisation
Ensure the RCOG Women’s Network – and wider women’s voices – continue to positively influence our work, including the resources we create for patients
GOAL THREE
We will become more resilient, accessible and influential through the delivery of a comprehensive digital transformation programme to ensure our research, educational and clinical products have benefit globally and drive up standards in women’s health.
Improving members’ online experience and reaching more people
In 2024, we conducted extensive research with our members to understand their experiences of interacting with the College online. This helped us to improve essential tasks, such as booking exams, accessing guidance and applying for volunteer positions to support College work.
We have reviewed the College’s online materials to make them more personalised and relevant to specific needs and interests. This has helped us to reach more people around the world with information and advice online. Visitors to our website increased by 20% to 3.7 million per year, and the number of people interacting with the College on social media grew by 41%. Since June 2020, our social media audience has risen by 70% to around 200,000 people.
This global accessibility has extended to the College’s programme of events. In 2024, over half of RCOG events were delivered in a virtual or hybrid format, allowing members and others to join from around the world. Nearly 20% of people who attended our events did so from outside the UK.
The College hosted an O&G virtual careers day for medical students and foundation doctors, attracting more than 430 people. It showcased the range of professional opportunities in the field to those considering a career in O&G.
Our ongoing webinar programme continued to keep O&G professionals up to date on key topics, attracting 1,000 registrations per webinar on average. In 2024, topics included updates on endometriosis and uterine transplantation in the UK.
The Women’s Network hosted a webinar for the public on fertility care, which around 90 people attended. More than 500 delegates attended a tailored webinar we hosted to advise and support doctors transitioning into a consultant or senior specialist role, offering valuable insights into managing the new responsibilities and expectations that come with these senior roles.
Championing digital learning for all
The College provided a vital role as a convenor, bringing together clinicians, health sector partners, technology innovators and most importantly, women and people, to identify how technological advancements can deliver solutions to improve women’s healthcare.
We developed new and improved online resources to encourage and support the O&G community at all stages of their careers, including:
• A new international medical graduates (IMG) online hub aimed at doctors new to, or considering moving to, the UK. The hub offers help with adapting to a new environment, both professionally and personally.
• Website content on careers to help attract a broader range of doctors to the O&G specialty, with profiles to showcase the diversity of roles and different career pathways that are available.
• A new toolkit for educational supervisors, who support, guide and monitor trainees, which has been accessed by more than 260 educators.
We launched new digital learning tools to help develop the skills of the international O&G community, including:
• Four online modules focusing on clinical research in O&G, commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in collaboration with the University of Birmingham. This is the first educational resource of its kind.
• A new eLearning resource, in collaboration with GE HealthCare, to support obstetricians and midwives who use Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS), a handheld ultrasound device, which is revolutionising obstetric care worldwide.
Laura Hipple is Vice President for Membership and Workforce at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She’s a SAS (Specialist, Associate Specialist, and Specialty) doctor in North Cumbria and has worked in O&G for over 30 years.
Laura talks about the importance of continuing to attract and retain a passionate and skilled workforce, and some of the different ways the College has been supporting this in 2024.
“If we’re going to make sure women and girls have compassionate and safe care, we need to keep recruiting – and retaining – doctors in our specialty. O&G training is very competitive, but we can’t be complacent about attracting new people.
When it comes to promoting careers in O&G, one of the things we're particularly proud of at the College is our international medical graduate (IMG) hub launched in 2024. IMG doctors play an essential role in the healthcare workforce. We have one of the highest proportions of IMG doctors in O&G – 57% in O&G compared to 35% as an average across all specialties.
O&G can be a high pressure environment. IMG doctors are also adapting to a new environment, both professionally, culturally and personally. A good induction is key. It can help staff feel valued, welcomed and understood. We want to develop or signpost people to the most useful resources and on the IMG hub, people can find information on moving to and living in the UK, visas, setting up bank accounts and much more.”
Being informative, open and honest
“In 2024, we hosted another successful virtual careers day for medical students and foundation doctors. Exposure to O&G can be limited for early career doctors, so events like these are an important way to inform their future career choices.
As well as covering practical topics, the careers day addressed some of the challenges of the specialty and negative headlines they may have seen. Obstetrics is a wonderful job. Nothing beats the thrill of delivering a baby. But when things go wrong, which they sometimes do, it can be very traumatic. People appreciated our speakers being open and honest about some of the difficult parts of the role, as well as the good parts.
To support doctors transitioning to the next stages of their career, we hosted a webinar for new consultants and specialists. Delegates had the chance to hear from people already working in these senior roles who offered useful tips they wouldn’t get from a textbook.
We also hold an annual Clinical Directors' Forum at the College to enable networking and support for these leaders in our specialty. This year, the event included a presentation on Specialist (senior SAS) roles. Understanding and support for alternative career pathways in our specialty is really important for the recruitment and retention of our future workforce.”
Throughout 2025, we will:
Streamline and improve members’ experience
Through the launch and development of the new College customer relationship management system (CRM).
Work with the Department of Health and Social Care to deliver the Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) Conference 2025
To address the need for AI development in women’s healthcare.
Trial the use of AI technology
To increase the accessibility of College resources.
Gather innovators, healthcare leaders and advocates at Union Street for the Accelerating FemTech summit
To explore how technological innovation can deliver solutions to improve the health of women and girls.
GOAL FOUR
We will ensure our financial and environmental sustainability through delivery of all of our objectives and contribute to a significantly reduced carbon footprint.
Delivering lower carbon, equitable care
We are supporting members to understand and respond to the climate crisis, provide more sustainable care and advocate for change at a national level. For example, we are supporting the NHS to provide lower carbon care, through our ‘Taking collective action to deliver low carbon, equitable maternity care’ project.
The project has mapped the maternity care pathway to identify ‘carbon and inequity hotspots’. These are specific areas where environmental impact caused by a high carbon footprint overlap with unequal access to quality care for groups of people.
The Green Maternity Challenge was launched to tackle these hotspots, enabling nine clinical teams across the UK to receive training and mentoring to develop, deliver and measure the impact of sustainable quality improvement projects in maternity care. The recommendations from this work will be communicated to the membership in 2025.
Reducing our carbon footprint
The College, as an organisation, continued to work on limiting contributions to the climate and ecological crisis. This year, we:
• Improved the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system in Union Street, making it more efficient and reducing our energy consumption.
• Installed photovoltaic (PV) solar panels on our building, producing over 44,000kwh of energy in 2024.
• Increased biodiversity in our Union Street Office courtyard, providing food for the bees in our rooftop hives.
• Conducted a freight audit to begin the process of reducing our carbon footprint from deliveries. We have made a plan to change suppliers and consolidate purchases and shipments with tenants and nearby organisations.
• Improved our digital studio and the audio visual in the College’s main hall area so that we can livestream events, interviews and training, reducing the need for people to attend in person.
• Delivered 65% of examinations outside the UK. This has reduced travel for international members who may previously have come to the UK for examinations, lowering carbon emissions.
Working inclusively and sustainably to improve care
The RCOG women’s health hub at Union Street welcomed another organisation, the Twins Trust. 15 women’s health organisations are now working side by side in the collaborative space at Union Street towards the shared mission of improving the health of women and girls.
The Union Street women’s health organisations collaborated to write an open letter to call for the public and staff in women’s health services to respond to Change NHS, the consultation which will shape a new 10 Year Health Plan for England. The Union Street women’s health organisations plea was to, ‘get it right for women and everyone benefits’.
The work we have done to deliver on our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy, to help make the College and O&G profession more inclusive, was recognised once again in 2024. The College received a silver Talent Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation (TIDE) award from the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion.
This builds on the bronze award received in 2022 and recognises the further progress that has been made on the College’s EDI agenda. TIDE measures how well an organisation is cultivating a positive and inclusive culture across different categories. The College’s progress score increased from 60% to 74%.
As the RCOG Women’s Network co-Vice Chair, Emma Crookes has been involved in a range of projects across maternity and pelvic floor health.
She is also Chair of the Lived Experience Group for the ‘Taking collective action to deliver low carbon, equitable maternity care’ project. Emma explains why sustainability in maternity care is so important.
“Can making maternity care more sustainable help to reduce inequity of care? This is just one of the key questions the Taking collective action to deliver low carbon, equitable maternity care project aimed to answer.
This project brought together experts from obstetrics and midwifery, as well as a group of 10 people with lived experience, to support maternity teams to run quality improvement projects to tackle carbon hotspots. The lived experience group played a vital role to ensure innovations identified as part of the project will benefit the whole maternity system and equitably support the needs of everyone using maternity services.
Listening to and involving the views of those who use maternity services, the people that support them and the wider maternity community helped ensure suggested innovations truly work for everyone and genuinely support the reduction of inequalities.”
The need for sustainability in maternity care
“I see the need for more work and innovation in sustainable maternity care. The research is clear: pregnant women, people and infants are some of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and we know that climate change and healthcare inequalities are linked.
As Lived Experience Group Chair, I led the group’s meetings and collaborated closely with the project team to pinpoint key areas where lay input could make a significant impact.
Lived Experience Group members have a range of recent experience of using fertility, maternity and postnatal services. This diversity of voices meant that the perspectives of the group kept this work grounded in what is actually important to women and people using services.”
Emma speaking at the Green Maternity Conference in March 2025
Emma speaking at the Green Maternity Conference in March 2025
Prioritising actions
“One clear priority for the group was the need to streamline services and systems to avoid waste and value service user’s time. The group felt that issues around delayed discharge and inefficient scheduling of appointments posed a range of challenges. These had a negative impact on the most marginalised communities and contributed to increased carbon emissions and environmental harm.
Another area the group highlighted was the need to tackle the long-lasting effects of incontinence following childbirth. Improving postnatal continence care may prevent life-long need for continence products and associated care which contribute to carbon emissions and waste.”
Throughout 2025, we will:
Publish an RCOG policy position statement on climate change and women’s health
Setting out the pivotal role of UK governments and health services in creating a liveable, healthy future for women and girls.
Publish the College’s recommendations and supporting tool kit to reduce carbon emissions within the maternity care pathway
Continue to invest in the College building at Union Street
Reducing reliance on gas and employing green technologies.
Further embed the College’s commitment to EDI by achieving Disability Confident Employer status
Benefits for members
Our aim is to improve the standard of care delivered to women, encourage the study of O&G, and advance the science behind the practice.
Membership fees pay for our campaigns, policy and global work, plus the guidance, education programmes and support networks we provide for doctors.
Member benefits include access to:
• RCOG Learning, which offers digital learning content, podcasts, audio series and videos from experts in the field
• The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG) journal which contains high-quality, peer-reviewed articles
• Our library and reading rooms
• Clinical guidance and best practice to help clinicians deliver high-quality care and improve their practice
• A Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme and ePortfolio, an online tool to record their learning. This supports members revalidation appraisal with the General Medical Council and lifelong learning.
• Wellbeing and mental health resources and support
• Volunteering opportunities which support their career development and puts them at the forefront of vital work to improve women’s global healthcare and health rights. This allows members to help shape the College’s priorities.
• Tailored communications on the latest news, clinical publications and campaigns
• A range of discounts on books, journal subscriptions, and society memberships
• International Representative Committees for non UK members. These liaise with and support members and trainees in their region.
Discover more at rcog.org.uk/membership
Find out more
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists works to improve women’s healthcare across the world. We’re committed to developing the accessibility and quality of education, training and assessments for doctors wishing to specialise in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G).
Contact us
Visit: rcog.org.uk
Call: 020 772 6200
Visit us at:
10-18 Union Street
London
SE1 1SZ
Find us on social media:
X: @RCObsGyn
Facebook: @RCObsGyn
LinkedIn: Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists | RCOG
Instagram: @royalcollegeobsandgynae
Registered charity no. 213280
A note on language
Within this impact report the terms ‘woman’ and ‘women’s health’ are used. However, it is important to acknowledge that it is not only people who identify as women for whom it is necessary to access women’s health and reproductive services in order to maintain their gynaecological health and reproductive wellbeing.
Gynaecological and obstetric services and delivery of care must therefore be appropriate, inclusive and sensitive to the needs of those individuals whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth.
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