I hope this finds you safe and well. We all continue to face challenges in our work and home lives due to the impact on Covid-19. As you will already know, the NHS has moved up to level 4 nationally which demonstrates the seriousness of the ongoing pandemic and the onset of winter pressures. Day surgery has been highlighted as a solution to aid the recovery of elective surgery and BADS has been invited to join a number of workstreams e.g The NHS England (NHSE) Adapt and Adopt Theatre workstream and the Get It Right First Time (GIRFT) London Recovery of Elective Surgery programme. Both of these workstreams have considered the BADS directory of procedures and how variation in day surgery pathways can be addressed to achieve the target day case rates set by BADS. The GIRFT London Recovery of Elective surgery programme has produced 29 pathways across 6 specialities, promoting day surgery wherever possible.

In September 2020, in collaboration with GIRFT and Centre of perioperative care (CPOC), BADS has published the day surgery delivery pack which we hope will prove informative for anyone interested in delivering day surgery. Education and promotion of high quality day surgery pathways continues to be a key component of the work of BADS and we have also recently published the Day case hip and knee replacement 2^nd edition and Day case Gynaecology booklets. September also saw the publication of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA)  4^th edition of Raising the Standards: RCoA quality improvement compendium which includes 9 day surgery quality improvement projects written by BADS council members.

We continue to work closely with Health Care Conferences UK (HCC) and have recently delivered 3 successful day surgery conferences: Day case major knee surgery, Day case hip surgery and Day case gynaecology. On 4^th December 2020 we have the Day case general surgery meeting which focusses on how to deliver day case general surgery during these challenging times of the covid19 pandemic. We are privileged to have many high quality speakers, to name a few, Professor Doug McWhinnie, President of the International Association of Ambulatory Surgery (IAAS), Mr Arin Saha, National Lead for Surgical Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC ) and Graham Lomax, GIRFT Deputy national delivery director.

BADS couldn’t do what it does without the fabulous and hard working BADS council. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every member of BADS council for their contribution to BADS and the promotion of day surgery. I am delighted to welcome our new elected members of BADS council Matthew Checketts, Cath Jack and Rachel Morris. They have all been delivering and developing day surgery for many years and they will all be a valuable addition to BADS council. If you would like to know more about them, their biographies are available in this edition of JODS. I am also pleased to announce that Sally Leyshon, one of our lay members has agreed to extend her term on BADS council. We also welcome 3 co-opted members, Maire Morton who is a Consultant OMFS surgeon and the GIRFT national lead for OMFS, Tara Byott, representing the Trainee committee of the Association of Anaesthetists and Mohammed Rabie representing Association of Surgeons in Training (Asit). Our co-opted members offer a valuable link to these Societies and aid us to enable promotion of day surgery education and support the delivery of high quality day surgery pathways.

BADS council has recently taken the difficult decision to cancel our face to face conference planned for March in 2021 in Cardiff. Instead we will be holding a one day virtual conference focussing on how day surgery can aid the recovery of elective surgery. Registration will be free for all BADS members so I do I hope you will join us. We already have some excellent speakers who have agreed to speak.

So, looking forward to 2021, I hope it and the Covid-19 vaccine brings us all a good year.

Take care and please keep safe and well.