British Geriatrics Society
Wales National Council 
Chairman: Dr Tony White
Chair Elect: Dr Wyn Harris
Secretary: Dr Salah Elghenzai
What's new in BGS Cymru?
Download Designed for Life: Creating world class health and social care for Wales in the 21st Century (pdf)
Update: June 2009
Orthogeriatrics
Concerns have been expressed about cost effectiveness of orthogeriatric units. Apparently there do not seem to be any new major problems and existing arrangements appear to be continuing satisfactorily.
Stroke Services
Currently, the outcome of a Select Committee Enquiry as being awaited and some members of BGS Wales have been invited to give evidence in an individual capacity. Dr Anne Freeman has been co-ordinating information. A further meeting is anticipated in September 2009. BGS Wales will probably express a view, to be submitted by Friday 28.08.09. Dr Elgenzhai will obtain appropriate forms and Dr White will draft a response on behalf of BGS Wales. This will be in consultation with BGS members of WASP. Dr White had also written to the Minister in respect of the recent BBC documentary regarding the state of Stroke services in Wales.
BGS Cymru Wales Constitution
Because of time constraints it has not yet been possible to progress a review of the Society’s Constitution.
UK National Meeting 2012
Llandudno will now be the venue for the UK BGS National Spring Meeting in 2012. Dr Hindle and Dr O’Mahony have been working on this but will need to be supported by other Welsh Geriatricians. It would seem appropriate to form a sub committee to include both Dr Hindle and Dr O’Mahony and probably a further representative from North Wales and perhaps one or two others in order to start progressing arrangements. We are planning for this to be an agenda item at the Autumn Meeting.
Palliative Care Strategy for Wales
Dr O’Mahony has been involved with some work on Care pathways but the current structure of support for palliative care has been disbanded within Wales and no new structure has yet been established. It is likely that there will be a need for continuing work on generic pathways in palliative care and there is also a need to consider disease specific issues as well.
Falls and Syncope Group
Dr Prakash is leading a group in North Wales and it would seem appropriate to see if links could be made between this group and a similar groups in South Wales.
Frailty and Intermediate Care
It was felt that it would be opportune to ascertain how colleagues are managing with the new management structures in place in Wales. Dr Morse has been trying to gather information from colleagues with clinical management experience and it was felt that it would be helpful to try and obtain some feedback for the meeting at the Royal Glamorgan in the autumn. Particularly, it would be helpful to learn of good practice, current structures and models of interface. Dr White will try to obtain opinions and discussion has emerged that there is likely to be mixed views on this topic. It was noted that Dr Chris Jones has been leading the review in planning care and community services. It was felt that it might be opportune to see if Dr Jones is willing to come to the meeting in Royal Glamorgan to perhaps to take part in a symposium on this issue. Dr White will approach both Dr Jones and also Dr Dewar at the Royal Glamorgan to see what arrangements could be made.
Succession Planning
Several members have nominated one candidate for Vice Chairman. This is Dr Ailsa Dunn who has agreed to accept nomination. Unfortunately the current Vice Chairman is unable to take up the Chairmanship in September so it was agreed that Dr White will continue as Chairman for a further 12 months in order to allow Dr Dunn to work herself in. She will act as Vice Chairman during this period and Dr White and Dr Dunn between them will allocate duties and it should then be possible for Dr Dunn to take over as Chairman in September 2010. At that stage another Vice Chairman will need to be chosen.
Following this there was discussion about the importance of secretarial support for the society officers. Currently this is on a somewhat ad hoc basis and is usually provided by the Personal Secretaries of the Chairman, Vice Chairman and Secretary. They are reimbursed essentially through Dr Chris James the Treasurer. We have a number of options with respect to secretarial support which we discussed. Viz:-
Option 1 – for the Personal Secretary of the Vice Chairman to take on more work
Option 2 – Explore whether the Secretary at Ty Pathy would be willing to take on support for BGS Cymru Wales. Dr White would try to follow this through.
Professor M S John Pathy
There has been further discussion about an appropriate way of commemorating Prof. Pathy. Some members had attended the funeral in April which was essentially an affair for family and close friends. A more formal memorial service is envisaged but family views need to be clarified and a mechanism for arranging such a service also needs to be established. Dr O’Mahony will speak to Dr Tony Bayer to see if he has any additional information or suggestions to make. Similarly the possibility of a memorial scrap book was discussed. Dr Anne Freeman has started to look at this and Dr Bayer’s input to this project would also be discussed. Another option would be a memorial edition of one of Prof Pathy’s textbooks. It was felt that this might be worth further attention but would be a longer term project. It was noted that the current editor Professor Paul Finucane, will need to be involved in discussion of this issue.
Rural Health Planning
This was discussed and it appears to have particular relevance to Powys but is probably applicable to all of Wales. A response will be required by August and Dr White will try to co ordinate this. Dr Dunn indicated that there are issues relating to generic workers, comprehensive geriatric assessment and the problems faced by rural communities in respect of emergency transfer. These issues had not been particularly well addressed in the consultation document.
Intermediate Care Audit
Dr. Dunn has completed this Dr Morse is in the process of completing an Audit in Cardiff. and the Audit is also being undertaken in Wrexham. These will be submitted to UK BGS. In addition there is a concern that some of the questions were slightly imprecise and it was thought desirable that these should be clarified. It was felt that this was the subject of an ongoing discussion within BGS UK as a whole but it was important to record the Welsh experience and transmit it to our colleagues in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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