The prospect of this year’s venue for the BGS Autumn meeting had not filled me with glee since I live south of London.

Although attending the previous venue in West London had not been a life-enhancing experience it was at least commutable but even then, I was never quite keen enough to get up at 5.00 a.m. to attend those breakfast sessions. But having booked a pleasant hotel opposite the Harrogate venue, which had the advantage of providing free health club membership during one’s stay, things started looking up. I decided to drive to the conference as I wished to visit my daughter at university on the return journey, and was pleasantly surprised when the drive took me just over 4 hours. The Harrogate Conference Centre was spacious, with adequate accommodation for most events. The one disappointment was the B lecture venue where one could only see the top line of the slides unless one was seated in the front 5 rows. My hotel was very comfortable and I had the luxury of a four-poster bed. I even made the Thursday breakfast session leaving my hotel at 7.00 a.m. for the 5-minute walk to the conference centre. Although the content of the session on stroke medicine was excellent the breakfast was inedible.

Our Staff and Associate Specialists committee (SASC) meeting was held during the lunch break on the Thursday in a side room, where an excellent cold buffet was provided for us. Disappointingly only 11 SAS doctors put in an appearance but encouragingly, there were some new as well as familiar faces. The main objectives of the meeting were to approve a constitution for the sub-group and plan the main areas of work for the coming year.

I do not propose to reproduce the whole constitution here, but the following aims and objectives were agreed:

Aims

• To provide a specialist focus for Staff Grade, Associate Specialist and Trust doctors who are involved in the care of older people.
• To promote an active group, which identifies and pursues the professional and academic needs of its members.

Objectives

• To maintain an up to date register of all SAS doctors working within elderly care medicine.
• To provide support and assistance to members to fulfil their Continuing Professional Development.
• To act as a link to other specialist groups in order to facilitate involvement in audit and research.
• To maintain links with and offer support to the BMA and RCP for other matters such as revalidation, remuneration, working conditions, entry to the specialist register and career progression.

Membership is open to all members of the British Geriatrics Society but also, it will be open to non-members of the BGS by invitation of the Committee. The latter is very important if we wish to be an inclusive group trying to attract all SAS doctors working within elderly care medicine. Hopefully if we can gain their involvement this will in turn lead to a wider and more representative BGS membership.

Please let us have your comments. You can contact us by email me or mail.

Sue Morgan
Chair
Staff and Associate Specialists Committee