Happy 70th Birthday BGS!

Dr Eileen Burns has been a geriatrician in Leeds since 1992 and is President of the BGS. She is currently Clinical Lead for integration in Leeds and Chairman of the BGS Community Geriatrics Special Interest Group. She tweets @EileenBurns13

The year is the BGS’s 70^th birthday, so I’d like to mark it by wishing all our members a Very Very Happy Birthday.

Our specialty grew from the work of an indomitable woman (the eponymous Marjory Warren (of MW House fame) who identified the potential for improvement in older people living in hospital wards of a workhouse like nature. She found conditions amenable to treatment or rehabilitation, and demonstrated that a large number of the inpatients (who were expected to live and die in that hospital ward) could be discharged from hospital after suitable attention.

The British Geriatrics Society calls for a lasting solution to the crisis in social care

The British Geriatrics Society welcomes any additional funding for social care. But we are concerned that the use of funding from increases in council tax and from funds generated by the New Homes Bonus scheme, announced today by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid, fails to address the urgent need for a more lasting solution to the crisis in social care funding.

In response to the announcement, Dr Eileen Burns, President of the British Geriatrics Society and a Clinical Director at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, commented:

“BGS welcomes any changes to funding of social care that help to address the current crisis that is having a direct impact on the healthcare of older people living with frailty – BGS members see the knock-on effects on a daily basis when older people present at A&E departments and when their discharge from hospital is a delayed because of a lack of capacity in the social care sector.

Incoming President of the BGS calls for respect for ‘victims of underfunding’

Dr Eileen Burns, who takes office today as the new President of the British Geriatrics Society, has called for public recognition that older people facing delays in discharge from hospital are the victims of underfunding of social care and not ‘the problem’. Dr Burns is urging members of the public, and media, to reject pejorative terms like ‘bed blockers’ and urge the Government to give social care the priority it deserves.

Dr Burns is only the second female President since the Society was founded in 1947. She has been a consultant geriatrician in Leeds for twenty-two years, and is an expert in community geriatrics. The primary focus of community geriatrics is to reduce admissions to hospital, and prevent delayed discharges and re-admissions, by ensuring that older patients receive adequate and appropriate care within their community.

Accessible social care is a key factor in reducing hospital admissions and delayed discharges for older people. According to research published earlier this month by Age UK, the number of older people in England who don’t get the social care they need has soared to a new high of 1.2 million – up by a staggering 48% since 2010.

Take the high road or the low road…but don’t miss the BGS in Glasgow this November!

Dr Eileen Burns has been a geriatrician in Leeds since 1992 and is President-Elect of the BGS. She is currently Clinical Lead for integration in Leeds and Chairman of the BGS Community Geriatrics Special Interest Group. She tweets @EileenBurns13

The Autumn Meeting of the BGS in Glasgow this November looks to be a great event with a broad range of topics and sessions.

But the day that excites me the most is Wednesday November 23rd.

Many of us have been approached by commissioners of services to “move into the community” in some way (in whichever part of the UK we are based). Others have seen the need to look at alternatives to acute hospital care for older patients with less severe illnesses, and it’s been clinicians rather than commissioners or managers who have been the spark for new developments.