Dear Colleague,
Following the BCCA Annual Meeting 2017, I asked the membership to send us their priorities for the coming year. The response exceeded expectations and we are now making progress in taking 2 of the most widely supported ideas forward after extensive discussion at council. The first of these is the library of clinical incident themes proposed by Andrew Parry which will help to disseminate learning across this often challenging area of healthcare. Plans are underway to set up a secure portal hosted by BCS and a pilot project involving 2-3 centres should take place in the first half of 2019.
The second idea is using BCCA resources to support registries, initially a registry on the antenatal detection of right aortic arch proposed by Anna Seale. This will promote cross centre collaboration and if successful lead to further registry based projects. Obtaining robust evidence can be challenging in congenital heart disease and often registries provide the best tool.
We have revised our constitution to make it more up to date and responsive to the needs of the membership. In particular becoming a member will become much more straightforward with approval at the council meetings which take place throughout the year. We hope to hear back from the Charity Commission early in the New Year with their official stamp of approval.
One further initiative is being developed jointly with BSCI. We would like to define the current state of congenital cardiac CT in the UK and Ireland in the first instance by means of a survey and based on the results, a workshop in spring will be arranged. We will be inviting cardiologists, radiologists and surgeons to attend this workshop.
My thanks go to the Liverpool team for arranging a truly excellent meeting and I am sure Newcastle will maintain the same high standard in 2019. If your centre is interested in hosting our annual meeting in 2020, please don't forget to submit an application to
bcca@bcs.com. For fuller details refer to the BCCA mailing of 22 October 2018 or read the original
news article on the website.
Please note that the deadline for 2020 hosting has now been extended to 31 January 2019 to give the membership a bit more time to apply.
Lastly I would like to wish you all Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year!
With best wishes
Alan Magee
President, British Congenital Cardiac Association