The BOMSS highlight of the new year was a well attended AnnualScientificMeeting(ASM)attheEuropaHotelBelfast in January. The ‘most bombed hotel’ in the world with stunning décor, provided great hospitality and conference facilities. The training day attracted around 100 delegates and the interactive political symposium on ‘Obesity services in Northern Ireland’ will hopefully provide the impetus to setting up a comprehensive morbid obesity & bariatric service. The inaugural session focussed on one of ourkeyobjectives–20,000NHSbariatricproceduresayear – an impossible dream?. Increasing access, obstacles and solutions, tariff and affordability were discussed. We also heard the Nordic perspective from Dr Paulina Salminen and the Swiss perspective from Dr Ralph Peterli. We also listened to the legal issues including patients’ rights from a senior barrister in London. Dr Boru from Rome spoke about hiatal hernia surgery in morbidly obese patients. The first of the debates was on whether only bariatric surgery with published randomised controlled trial (RCT) data should be applied outside of a research setting. The second debate analysed RCT data comparing sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass. We also heard BOMSS research activities from Yitka Graham and trainees’ needs and aspirations from Corinne Owers. Jim Byrne provided up to date information about Byband-sleeve trial. Video gems from three experts was a new addition along with MDT discussion of three complex scenarios (surgical, dietetic & anaesthetic). Society of Bariatric Anaesthetists (SOBA) joined us on the final day for an interesting session on ‘Myths & sacred cows in bariatric practice’. We hope to have this as a recurring item on the agenda next year. We also heard an interesting debate on whether it was time to abandon BMI as a criteria for bariatric surgery. Social interaction at the gala dinner and on the dance floor was fantastic and we raised the maximum ever industry support till date at Belfast. We are proud of our relationship with industry partners and this is set to grow in strength in future years. A number of excellent free papers and posters were presented and abstracts have been published in ‘Obesity Surgery’. Shaw Somers was thanked for his excellent leadership as President over the last 2 years and Prof David Kerrigan assumed office as President at the closing event. BOMSS continues to work very closely with AUGIS council, we were delighted to have several AUGIS executive colleagues at our council meeting and ASM in Belfast. Executive level meetings across both societies is now a regular feature and we will be coming together to host a joint meeting involving AUGIS, BOMSS, GBIHPBA, Pancreatic Society & EUS users group in Belfast in October 2020. I am sure Prof Giles Toogood will be sharing further details. BOMSS Secretary Report Mr Vinod Menon 10 AUGIS Summer 2019 Newsletter PeterSmallleadsaveryvibrantandactiveNBSRcommittee, the registry has more than 70,000 patients on the database (andgrowing).COP2017/18willbepublishedoverthenext few weeks clearly demonstrating excellent outcomes and safety of such surgery. COP 2018/19 will also be published in a few months time bringing the cycle back on track. NBSR is one of the largest bariatric surgical databases in the world and we are one of the main contributors to IFSO global registry. A number of interesting publications are underway, we are working with PHIN (Private Health care Information Network) to help ensure robustness of data that gets published in the public domain regarding surgery provided in the private sector. The committee is working with Dendrite to generate individual consultant / trust reports that can be used for appraisals & to inform discussions with commissioners in addition to developing patient reported outcome measures (PROM) relevant to bariatric surgery. GDPR regulations and introduction of new IT system for AUGIS / BOMSS have seen a reduction in membership numbers, I would encourage full members and AHP’s to renew their subscriptions, attractive packages are being offered to AHP’s for our next ASM in Aberdeen in January 2020 hosted by Duff Brice and team. The scientific committee are busy drafting an exciting programme for boththeASM&trainingday.CorinneOwersranasuccessful training day in Doncaster in March and our winter meeting in Corvara in March was enjoyable and educational as always. September will be a busy month with IFSO 2019 in Madrid and the AUGIS meeting in Liverpool with a broad bariatric spread on the programme. There is a lot of interest to develop a surgical specialty lead (SSL) role for bariatric surgery working closely with Royal College of Surgeons. Jim Byrne is working on this and will be in touch with details in the near future. Council are also revising the professional standards guidance document (originally published in 2013) incorporating amendments to MDT structure, provision of level 2 & 3 facilities as well as proposed surgeon & unit volumes. This should be on the website in the very near future. Council will also be working closely with International Bariatric Club (IBC) who run fantastic meetings and have active social media presence and it would be great to learn from each other. Mary O’Kane and colleagues are working on BOMSS nutritional guidelines and a one page executive summary on ‘Psychology guidance’ will be uploaded on to our website soon. The next edition of ‘Oxford Textbook of General Surgery’ is due for publication later on this year. The topics are mapped to the GMC curriculum. BOMSS is committed to increasing the footprint of bariatric surgery on the curriculum and this would be a good start. In my role as section editor, I will be approaching colleagues for support in the near future. I wish all of you a very enjoyable summer. Vinod Menon Honorary Secretary BOMSS BOMSS Secretary Report AUGIS Summer 2019 Newsletter 11 BOMSS Council Members President: Professor David Kerrigan Council Member: Mr Marco Adamo Secretary: Mr Vinod Menon Council Member: Mr Ahmed Ahmed Treasurer: Mr James Byrne Council Member: Ms Cynthia Borg NBSR Chair: Mr Peter Small Council Member: Mr Chandra Cheruvu IHP Council Member: Rachel Batterham Trainee Representative: Corinne Owers IHP Council Member: Maureen Boyle Research Lead: Yitka Graham IHP Council Member: Mary O’Kane AUGIS Representative: Mr Stephen Fenwick