I’m delighted to write that BADS had a very successful annual conference in Nottingham in June, our first face-to-face meeting in three years. The attendance exceeded our expectations, we had to close registrations as demand outstripped capacity and we achieved one of the highest numbers of trade exhibitors in recent years. Provisional feedback is very encouraging. Although this is re-iterating comments from my letter in May, a huge thank you to our BADS Council Conference Team, Fiona Belfield and Matthew Checketts for their work in putting the programme together and Event Management Direct, for their organisational support, including arranging our trade exhibition. In addition to the conference educational benefits, it was a great opportunity to meet and network with all delegates in person. For our BADS members, irrespective of whether you were able to attend, the conference presentations are now available for all to view in the members’ area of the BADS website, thanks to the support from Talking Slides, It all bodes well for our 2023 annual conference, which is taking place on 29th and 30th June at Glasgow Caledonian University, book it in your diary!
Regarding membership and Council news, our membership now exceeds 600, which is the largest it has been to date and so encouraging given we are an association encouraging membership across a broad spectrum of medical, nursing, allied health professional and administrative organisations, all vying for members. We are obviously doing something right! Our membership benefits now include free access to our online handbooks, the BADS National Dataset, with free access to the online BADS Directory of Procedures in the next few weeks and unlimited submissions to the Journal of One Day Surgery (JODS) without additional article processing fees and a members link to pdf issue of JODS, ahead of publication date.
The Association remains in good health, thanks to the ongoing contributions from our membership and my colleagues on BADS Council. I am pleased to announce that following approval at our pre-conference Council meeting and AGM that Ms Ann Conquest, Manager of the Tavistock Day Surgery Unit/Elective Inpatient Ward will be taking up a BADS Council taster membership for one year and that Ms Karen Harries (Lead Nurse for Day Surgery and Pre-operative Assessment at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London), who is a current BADS Council member, will be BADS Honorary Secretary from September. She will be taking over from Theresa Hinde, who has performed this role brilliantly over the last four years.
One of the responsibilities of BADS President is to be the first port of call for member queries about different aspects of day surgery management and administration. In the year that I have been in this role, these have raised challenges in their resolution that have stimulated discussion between Council for the betterment of day surgery care. Please continue to submit any questions about day surgery issues to bads@bads.co.uk. Thank you.
In further developments of Council since my last letter in the May edition of JODS (1) BADS continues to contribute to GiRFT workstreams, where day surgery expertise is required, (2) interventional radiology is going to be incorporated into the BADS Directory of Procedures, (3) BADS Council anaesthetic members Kim Russon, Rachel Tibble and Joellene Mitchell are co-authors on the latest GPAS edition of Guidelines for the Provision of Anaesthesia Services for Day Surgery.
As I’m off to Australia soon to visit family in Melbourne, I haven’t seen since before lockdown, I thought it apt to end on the following quote from the doyenne of Melbourne society, Dame Edna Everage “Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”
Jo Marsden