Mary Stocker

I am sure like myself many of you are enjoying the last few days of a long glorious summer and preparing for the beginning of new academic terms and the return of some normality to the routine of home and work. As I look back over the summer the highlight for BADS was our Annual Scientific Meeting held this year in the lovely city of Sheffield. This was our first visit to Sheffield as a society and one we are very likely to repeat. The success of the meeting was a tribute to our Conference Secretaries Kim Russon and Fiona Belfield, along with our Honorary Secretary Paul Rawlings and of course Nicola Adams and Janet Mills.  Huge thanks to this team who provided us with such an outstanding conference but also to all our members who submitted abstracts, posters and oral presentations and came to Sheffield in such great numbers and with such enthusiasm. It was so lovely to once again have a conference with large delegate numbers and such enthusiastic participation from all who attended. The details of the meeting are to be found elsewhere in the Journal but with day surgery neurosurgery last year, day surgery hip and knee replacements this year I really am left thinking will there be any elective inpatient activity left at all in a few years’ time. The ever-increasing expansion of the day surgery repertoire is a real tribute to those of you who work up and down the country to bring the day surgery agenda to the forefront of your trusts attention and to develop ever improved pathways of care for your day surgery patients, such that it is no longer inconceivable to be approaching such major surgery on a day case basis.

Looking forward to the new year for BADS I am delighted to announce some new appointments to council and some new officer roles. We welcome Alex Alen, Jan Howells-Johnson and Sandra Briggs to full members of council having all been co-opted council members for the last 12 months. All three bring nursing expertise to our ranks.  We are also delighted to welcome Dave Bunting our to full council membership.  Dave was previously a representative of the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASIT), however after securing an consultant surgeon position he was no longer eligible to remain in that role and we are delighted to have him as a full council member.

We will also see some changes in the societies officers this year. I am delighted to announce that Kim Russon will be succeeding me as President of the Society in June next year. Theresa Hinde is taking over from Paul Rawlings as Honorary Secretary and Jo Marsden joins Kim Russon and Fiona Belfield within the conference planning team. 

If you were unable to join us in Sheffield or even if you were there and would like to hear more about day surgery hip and knee replacement surgery we will be running a joint conference with Healthcare Conferences in London on September 20^th.  Details are on the website for what looks to be a very useful day, do come along. Other developments on the horizon include the imminent launch of the model hospitals day surgery benchmarking compartment details will be on the BADS website as soon as this is available.

We are still trying to update our list of contacts for day surgery teams up and down the country so please e-mail the office if you have details of the lead medic and nurse for your day surgery unit. We look forward to hearing from you.

Finally do put the dates of our 30^th Anniversary meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine in your dairy now – we hope to see you there!