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It is time to start thinking of applying for a Clinical Excellence Award in the 2008 round. See the website for details of the relevant dates for the BGS nominations.

As always we will require completed CVQs before the result of the 2007 round are announced. One expected change for 2008 is that the personal statements of successful applicants will be posted on the ACCEA website so that your colleagues and patients can see what you have written.

President’s Medals
Jed Rowe was unable to attend the Brighton meeting to receive his medal. Instead it was presented to him at a garden party kindly hosted by Jill and Alistair Main. It was a gloriously sunny day and I am pleased to report that Jed was in fine form. I hope it will be possible for him to participate in the Birmingham meeting which I know he was looking forward to organising.

The second recipient was Roger Lewis who has been a stalwart of the specialty and the Society in the South East for many years. I first came into contact with Roger almost 50 years ago (we were at the same secondary school) and subsequently he recruited me into the specialty, becoming my first boss. His commitment to older people was unswerving and his example led me to stay in the specialty.

Knowledge Based Assessments (KBA)
Further discussions are going on between the Confederation of Royal Colleges of Physicians and the Medical Specialty Society about the development of KBA and their role in the assessment of Registrars and in recertification. No definite news, so all I can say is, watch this space.

Recertification and MTAS
On this issue too I have no more news. I imagine the Department of Health and the profession have been more pre-occupied by MTAS and the whole issue of Modernising Medical Careers. Clearly many trainees have felt let down and betrayed by the failures of MTAS but all is not as it seems. Some of the senior agitators have personal rather than professional axes to grind and less popular specialties have fared better than previously. The inability of senior members of the profession to choose who should work for them directly is clearly a shock to the system.

Launch of Dignity Campaign: Behind Closed Doors
I am very grateful to Sally Greengross for hosting the launch of this campaign in the House of Lords. We had a good attendance including the Minister for Care Services (Ivan Lewis) and several members of the House of Lords. Baroness Hales spoke first and said that it was quite clear that the abuses described in the document were breaches of Human Rights! We have heard that the institutional audit has now been taken up by local services. I was invited to give evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Human Rights and will report on this in the next issue.

Brighton
The Spring conference was a great success thanks Raj and team. Plans are now finalised for Harrogate in November and for Glasgow next April. I look forward to seeing you there.

Peter Crome