BSG COUNCIL MEETING
TiG representatives: Adam Haycock/Paul Flanagan

UPDATES:

BSG Council Meeting: June 11, 2010 (Adam Haycock)

These is a summary of the meeting points that are of interest to trainees.

Topic focussed meetings – will now be called BSG clinical update meetings
First gastro meeting in Sept 2010 will be linked with an IBD workshop in Edinburgh. Draft programme approved – no abstracts, plenary only. The first hepatology meeting will be in 2012. The aim is to share these meetings in the future with regional Gut clubs should they wish.

National Alcohol audit
There will be an application soon for a national alcohol audit (along the lines of IBD audit) to identify standards and outcomes.

Flexible sigmoidoscopy screening
Will be taken on board over the next 3-5 years. Initially via pilot centres. Likely to need 200 new flexible sigmoidoscopists, which is a major workforce issue. Perhaps a way to mop up excess trainees over the next 5 years?

2012 Meeting – Digestive Disease Federation (DDF). Liverpool. 4 day format with 7 different organisations. Will have single organisation symposia, but also symposia with crossover of all organisations. This is likely to be repeated again in 2015. All meetings will move to June from 2012 onwards.

Endoscopy
16 travelling fellowships funded by the BSG this year – will continue to expand this and provide ongoing funding.

Hepatology
Proposals have been made to incorporate BASL and the BSG together into a new body – name potentially British Society for Gastroenterology and Hepatology (BSGH). The proposal is now with BASL and aim will be for agreement in Council in Dec and changes to take effect in June 2011.

SCE
Approach will be made to RCP to re-introduce the postnominal Cert (Gastroenterology).

Education Grant for trainees section
No problem allocating funding. Need to thrash out detail with Tom Smith and training committee as to application and vetting process.

BSG Council Meeting: June 12, 2009 (Ana Ignjatovic)
These minutes are a summary of the meeting only and as such are my interpretation of the meeting and discussions that took place.

1. Reports from the Executive

President: There is a move to engage and inform the public of BSG activities. To that end a seminar in Downing St is scheduled on 24th June. There was a discussion around quality indices and metrics that we should propose for gastroenterology instead of waiting for the government to impose it on us – Dr Loft is taking on this role.

President elect: Joint specialty committee with RCP is a useful link between specialist societies and the college, with the aim of avoiding any duplication between the two.

Treasurer: The executive have been in consultation with the professional bodies to decide how best to invest BSG money – it has been decided that BSG should not buy a property at this stage, but perhaps invest in property funds (with the aid of experienced financial advisors).

Regarding SCE, BSG is in contract with RCP for the next 3 years but may look at alternative delivery of SCE after that date (Prof Hawkey cited an example of cardiology trainees who take a European on-line exam which costs 50 Euros!)

2. Quality metrics

It is expected that government would be keen to use mortality within some metrics and to that effect 30day ERCP mortality has been proposed. Metrics need to be clinically meaningful, statistically powered, not confounded or perverse in outcome as Prof Hawkey summarised. PROM (patient related outcome) should also be included.

3. British DDW

A meeting between interested societies (UK DF, BAPEN, AUGIS, BASL, BSG, BSPGHAN; apologies from ACPGBI) took place and was chaired by Dr K Palmer. There was general support for British DDW – there is a plan to try and arrange a meeting for 2 yrs running, starting in June 2011 in Birmingham (June having been identified as the best month for all societies).

4. Clinical research strategy

Prof Mark Hull produced and discussed a long document detailing the BSG research strategy, with the aim of co-ordinating research across the UK. Key researchers in the areas of IBD, Endoscopy, Small bowel and nutrition and neuro-gastroenterology and motility have been identified.

5. Report form CORE

Dr Bennett was surprised at the lower number of applications CORE has received for 1. Basic science award (30) and 2. Clinical science award (3). He seemed unaware of the difficulty of obtaining an OOPE (in London, trainees can only leave rotation in Oct and have to say so by their RITAs which were yesterday. Of course none of the charities announced their grants by yesterday!).

There was some discussion amongst the Council at how poorly advertised those awards are; I have undertaken to liaise with John Bennett to see whether TiG/TS can help and advertise these prizes. Prof Jankowski, on behalf of Education Committee, put forward ideas for a couple of new prizes which need to be discussed; there appears some bias with regards to the number of prizes available for basic science research compared to clinical research (I may be biased). Endoscopy section is trying to obtain funding for more Fellowship posts (i.e. like Peter Cotton’s course in South Carolina).

6. Clinical services and standards

There are now Strategic Health Authority reps to establish the link between BSG and SHAs and keep GI high on SHA agenda. If BSG wishes to continue producing Guidelines that clinicians can defer to in the NHS, it needs to be NICE accredited. This would necessitate patient involvement and assessment of the economic implications of the guidelines. It is clear that a link needs to be established between BSG and NICE to avoid repetition of work (e.g., NICE have just published celiac guideline and about to publish one on alcohol without involving BSG).


BSG Council Meeting:September 19, 2008 (Stuart Kendrick)

Matters relevant to gastroenterologists in training:

Engagement with trainees. There was concern that despite recent attempts to improve the BSG’s engagement with gastroenterologists in training, some doctors still had the impression that the society was ‘distant and uninvolved’. I was able to say that the situation had certainly improved over the last five years with the BSG now actively seeking the opinions and involvement of gastroenterologists in training. Once the ‘Welcome Pack’ is ready, programme directors will be able to distribute it to all St3s when they start on gastro training and this will help doctors have an understanding of Gastro in the UK and help the BSG raise its profile with this group. A lot of trainees find it difficult to understand the difference between the various bodies that ‘meddle’ with their training, and it is difficult for a distant observer to separate the influence of the BSG from that of the SAC, JRCPTB, PMETB, MMC, RCP etc, so some may view the society with a little suspicion. In part this is alleviated by Nick Thompson’s engagement with trainees at TiG meetings and his presentation of the workforce data and what the BSG is doing to keep the number of gastro trainees at a sensible level.

Public engagement. The BSG has engaged a new PR company, Quintus. Ian Gilmore has used his time as President of the RCP(London) to raise awareness about issues surrounding alcohol and health, and the Society is looking at ways to carry this on once he demits from office.

Strategy group. The BSG is adopting a more strategic approach to planning for the future. The main relevance to trainees is that new Gastro STRs will be given their first year of BSG membership automatically and free of charge.

Gastro curriculum. This will be refreshed for 2010. There is a widely-circulated rumour that Gastro training will become more ‘modular’ with training in subspecialties such as advanced endoscopy, nutrition, IBD etc. This is not at all on the agenda – training will remain comprehensive with only the existing Hepatology being an official subspecialty.

Treasurer. BSG sections receive a budget based on the number of members in a section. These budgets are not always used so if a section has a plan that requires funds in addition to its budget it may apply to the Treasurer for a top-up from the surplus.

IBD care standards. These have been circulated and there is concern that they would be difficult to implement in smaller DGHs which then might not be commissioned to provide IBD care, which would then have implications for trainees at such centres. However, there is reassurance in the primacy of the intention that care should be local, with the intention that IBD care should still be provided everywhere.

New journal. Plans are now progressing for a sister publication to Gut which might be titled ‘Practical Gastroenterology’ or similar and would contain articles directly relevant to clinical practice rather than ‘high science’. It will probably be complemented by an e-learning channel on which educational activity can be recorded for later revalidation purposes. There will probably be an agreement that BSG sections will produce two educational items a year for the journal or e-learning resource. (Trainees Section/ TiG might need to review its involvement with the Gastro CME journal if we feel the commitment to this is more important)

Trustees. These are being appointed; at least one will be someone with a background in education and training.

Research strategy. This is being developed and will hopefully link in with the new national comprehensive local research networks, making multicentre research easier to organise and coordinate. The new Academic Development Group will develop strategy and support academic career pathway trainees.

Gastro 2009. The World Congress will be in London in November 2009. A Young Clinicians Programme has been devised and will have places for 30 UK and 60 international trainees. Competition for places is already being advertised on BSG and TiG sites.