Kim Russon

I hope this finds you all safe and well. The last few months have continued to be challenging but things do seem to be improving. The UK vaccination programme is progressing well, enabling the government to relax restrictions and offering people the opportunity to meet up with friends and family and hopefully to go on holiday and get some well deserved rest.  Variable progress has been made nationally to reduce the elective surgery waiting lists but thankfully there does seems to be some appetite to help address this by different ways of working rather than “just doing more” which should be recognised as being potentially detrimental to staff well being. One solution is to manage more surgery using day case pathways and BADS continues to work with Get It Right First Time (GIRFT) and NHS Integrated Care Systems (ICS) to promote and progress this.

How to use day surgery to help recover elective surgery was the focus of our recent BADS virtual conference. What a totally fabulous conference! So much information delivered slickly in one day. I must thank the conference team, AV company and all of our superb speakers and the delegates who attended and helped to make it such a huge success. We were privileged to have so many high quality speakers sharing examples of what can be performed as a day case. Don’t worry if you missed it, the recording is still available for BADS members to watch via our BADS website.

I am delighted to report BADS membership has grown and the Society now has over 550 members. BADS is committed to developing and promoting day surgery and to support our members to do this. With this is mind, we have plans to increase the resources available to members on the website, so please keep a look out! The new BADS website was launched in March 2021 and I hope you are all enjoying the new look as much as I am. Available on the website later this year will be a list of day surgery leads and managers to enable BADS members to be able to contact each other and share knowledge and expertise and also assist BADS to keep day surgery units up-to-date of national developments. If you are a day surgery lead and happy to be part of this then please contact bads@bads.co.uk

Following excellent delegate feedback from our joint conferences, BADS continues to collaborate with Healthcare conferences (HCC) to deliver one day speciality focused conferences where teams achieving successful day surgery share their knowledge and pathways to enable other centres to learn how to deliver similar services.

• Day Surgery in Gynaecology   20th May 2021
• Day Case General Surgery During Covid   18th -19th June 2021
• Day Case Urology     8th July 2021
• Breast Surgery as Day Surgery   7th Sept 2021
• Daycase Major Knee Surgery   4th November 2021
• Day Case Total Hip Replacement 18th November 2021

I was saddened and slightly surprised when I initially realised that this is my final President’s  letter for JODS. The past two years have flown by! However, when I reflect on the achievements we have made over the last 2 years I feel very positive: we have strengthened the BADS governance processes, moved over to virtual council meetings, delivered a number of virtual conferences, grown the membership and significantly raised awareness of day surgery nationally. I am so proud of how much day surgery seems to have moved forward over the past few years. I have been supported by an excellent council to whom I would like to expressive my immense gratitude. BADS could not do what it does without the hard work and dedication of council. I would like to specifically thank Nicola Adams, BADS administrator for all of her help and patience during my Presidency. Nicola is the backbone of the Society and it couldn’t run without her. She has given a vast amount of additional time to enable BADS to deliver the BADS virtual conference and the new BADS website.

BADS council sadly have two farewells. Janet Mills has been the BADS Exhibition manager for over 14 years. Her easy going, friendly manner drew many exhibitors to support BADS annual conference year after year and she will be missed by council. Thank you Janet and please enjoy your retirement! Someone else who will leave an enormous gap is immediate past President Mary Stocker. She has been on Council for over 11 years and has also been Conference secretary and Treasurer. She has been a huge driver of day surgery locally and nationally and offered invaluable support and guidance to me personally and to BADS council. I am sure Mary’s enthusiasm and drive to progress day surgery will continue. Thank you Mary from me personally and on behalf of BADS.

Council elections are currently in progress and I am delighted to report that we have received 5 expressions of interest to join BADS Council (2 are current council members seeking re-lection). The biographies of Mrs Alex Alen, Mrs Fiona Belfied, Mr Muhammad Rafaih Iqbal, Dr Joellene Mitchell and Dr Rachel Tibble are available to view on the BADS website. All BADS members should have received a link to be able to submit their vote. Voting will close on 28^th May 2021.

I shall be handing over the BADS Presidency to Miss Jo Marsden at the BADS Virtual AGM on Friday 9^th July 2021. Jo has a great passion for day surgery and I’m sure will lead the Society well. Thank you again to everyone for their support and contribution to day surgery, please take care and I hope you can join us at the virtual AGM.