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The European Region of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) held its conference in St Petersburg in July.

The IAGG, to which the BGS affiliates has three sections – biology, clinical and social. These conferences allow delegates to meet experts and listen to talks on a much wider range of subjects than we can accommodate in our meetings. A reasonable number of delegates from the UK attended and I was elected Secretary-General of the Clinical Section. It certainly is odd coming out of concerts at 11pm at night and it still being light! The next world congress of the IAGG will be in Paris in 2009 whilst the next European meeting will be in Bologna in 2011. I urge all to attend.

Knowledge Based Assessments / MRCP Geriatrics
Oliver Corrado and I attended a meeting at the RCP London to discuss the proposed Knowledge Based Assessments for specialist registrars, which for us may well be known as the MRCP (Geriatrics). The Federation delegation included our former President Brian Williams. The plan would be for the Society to provide the question writers and for the Colleges to organise the examination. There is also the possibility of running the examination as a stand alone qualification. This would be targeted at doctors from abroad. Our concerns so far, centre on the potential cost, the importance of seeing this as an integral part of training, and what is seen as unnecessary haste by the Colleges. A particular concern for Geriatric Medicine is the need to protect the identity of the present Diploma examination provided by the London and Glasgow Colleges. What will finally emerge remains to be seen.

New Partners
The Nurse Consultant Special Interest Group has now been in existence for a year and would appear to be developing well with participation at our Spring Conference and in our committees. I am now embarking on a series of meetings with the older allied health professions to discuss whether there are ways in which we can work more closely. The SIG approach is one, but not the only, route.

Older People’s Specialist Forum
The BGS hosted a meeting of this group at the BGS offices. We have heard that the Department of Health (DH )will continue to support this forum for the next couple of years at least. However we have decided to take on organising this group if necessary.

MMC and MTAS
The formal BGS response has not yet been finalised and will appear on the web when it is. However the RCP London has submitted its response to the Tooke Enquiry. Suggestions include adding a potential third year to core medical training, allowing greater flexibility to move between deaneries, more than a single entry each year and making entry into ST3 competitive. Clearly there a group of physicians who want to reverse MMC completely. It will be interesting to see what Tooke suggests and also how the health ministries respond.

Re-licensing and Recertification
Not much news here except to say that it looks as if stricter requirements for annual licence renewal will be introduced before recertification of specialist status. We had a “useful” discussion at the last UKMC on what components should make up the evidence that specialists will need to submit. At the moment there is not a consensus of what the geriatric medicine package will look like except that a more sophisticated form of CPD is needed. All I can say is watch this space.

New Professors
Congratulations to John Starr (Edinburgh), Steve Iliffe (UCL), Avan Aihie Sayer (Southampton) and Tom Robinson (Leicester) on their well deserved promotions.

Honours for our members
Congratulations to Dr Anita Thomas OBE and Dr David Prichard OBE who were recognised in the recent Birthday honours list.

I will take this opportunity to wish all readers a happy summer.

Peter Crome