President's welcome

Exciting times ahead for bariatric specialists

You are very warmly welcome to our renewed and upgraded website. The Communications sub-committee, led by Sally Norton and Mike Rhodes, has done a huge amount of work with our web team of Helen Riley and Emmanuel Amadiegwu, to completely revise the format and content of the site - very successfully I feel. I hope you find it useful - please pass any suggestions and comments to Sally or Mike via harriet@augis.org

Over the past 12 months a number of important events have raised the reputation and influence of our society:

Following a resolution accepted by members at our AGM and subsequent elections, I am delighted to confirm that Council has been expanded by two seats. I take this opportunity to welcome Alan Osborne as Associate Member representative. The issues around workforce development and service volume need close liaison with our trainee colleagues. I was also very pleased that Mary O’Kane was elected as the second AHP representative on the team. The multiprofessional nature of our society has added much to its unique flavour, both nationally and internationally and is very dear to me: both appointments greatly strengthen our hand.

We have also activated a sub-committee process. The dual purpose is to encourage participation and share the workload arising from the tasks ahead, previously borne by Council alone. I know many of the groups are already quite active - please join in! I am re-circulating the agreed membership to all subcommittee leads, so if you have not heard recently you should do so in the near future.

Our 2012 Annual Scientific Meeting in Bristol was a great success and was preceded by an excellent Training Day. A full report on the meeting will appear on the website soon to give you a flavour of the event. Make a note in your diaries of our 2013 Meeting which will be held in Glasgow on January 23 - 25.

I was particularly pleased that the Society was recently approached to provide expert input into a regional designation process for NHS bariatric providers. Members of the Service Standards Subcommittee have already responded very helpfully and I would hope that, if we make a success of this, our participation will become the norm.

No doubt the successful launch of the NBSR First Registry Report in April had something to with this request. I should like to thank all of you who contributed data for your share in this success and I very much hope you will actively encourage your colleagues to join in the enterprise! I was delighted to hear that, meanwhile, several large groups who were not contributing now do so. Thanks are also due to Richard Welbourn and to the team at Dendrite Clinical Systems for their huge commitment to making it happen.

When I took office in 2010 I made a commitment to improving participation and transparency. Work is well advanced on a root-and-branch revision of our Constitution which will be ready for debate by Council in Belfast and should come out to all of you for consultation shortly thererafter. This revision will not only include some important byelaws, passed by council and placed before the AGM, that have never been formally written in to the articles. It will also define the responsibilities and rights of the Membership, Council and an Executive group more clearly, ultimately providing a stronger voice for all.

I write this on the eve of the IFSO meeting in Hamburg, where Sally Norton and I, as leads of the International Affairs Subcommittee, will be representing BOMSS both on the IFSO General Council and at the Council Meeting of IFSO-EC Chapter. We will be working to strengthen the voice of your Society within IFSO and seeking support for the UK as the venue for a future international meeting of IFSO.

Finally, a big “thank you” to everyone for your past and present efforts to enhance the practice of our specialty. The ultimate beneficiaries are our patients.

Very best wishes,

Alberic Fiennes,
President BOMSS