Report of the meeting of the Section and Board of Anaesthesiology (SBA) Istanbul, Saturday 17th November 2007

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The meeting was attended by 33 representatives from 21 countries, and was chaired by Professor Hans Knape.

Key points:

• a) in association with the Turkish Society, the Section held a well-attended mini-symposium on Patient Safety in Anaesthesia the afternoon before the SBA meeting. The quality of lectures was high, and speakers will be invited to identify key points suitable for wider implementation;
• b) the Section continues to be impressively active, with its meetings being well-attended, and, as evidenced by the documents presented on the agenda, much work being done between meetings
• c) the SBA has an excellent record of ensuring that its policy documents are published in the European Journal, thus ensuring that these have a wide readership and do have an impact beyond the UEMS.

Summary:

1) President’s report:

• a. Intensive Care Medicine (ICM) remains a controversial area, with attempts being made by some to establish this as a separate speciality. This has been resisted by others, including many in the SBA, because of the potentially adverse implications for the many specialties that would be affected. A compromise proposal has been to recognise ICM as having specific competencies, with the decision being left to individual EU-member states to determine the status of ICM in their country,
• b. the SBA and the European Society of Anaesthesiologists (ESA) continue to enjoy healthy co-operation, and the Presidents of the SBA and the ESA recently had a meeting with Nick Fahy to emphasise the work being done within the specialty to improve Patient Safety,
• c. the SBA is working with the ESA to establish areas of competence in the development of guidelines, with the SBA dealing with more “political” matters, and the ESA with more clinical ones,
• d. the SBA has been approached by the FEEA and the ESA to work in a joint initiative on continuing education,
• e. the finances will be reviewed following the distribution of the accounts;

2) Strategy: the President-elect of the SBA, Jannicke Mellin-Olsen, emphasised the need to align the strategy of the SBA with that of the UEMS, and to work with the ESA. It is planned that the SBA strategy will be developed by work in its sub-committees;

3) CME/CPD: the sub-committee already has published guidelines on CME/CPD, and plans to work with the EACCME to provide links to accredited e-CME/CPD activities. Members would like to see greater opportunities for feedback from participants in CME/CPD activities;

4) Education & Training: the standards for the speciality have been finalised, and have been submitted for publication in the European Journal. Future work will focus on establishing competencies for practise, how to assess these, and how to train trainers for competency--based training and assessment;

5) Workforce: the SBA has published its work in this area, and has highlighted the problems arising from the Europe-wide shortage of Anaesthetists, and problems related to inadequately considered solutions to this. Of particular sensitivity is the need for anaesthesia only to be provided or supervised by medically-qualified practitioners;

6) Fellowship of the European Board: the ESA has been approached to review its initial estimates of the likely costs of this initiative, as these are considered prohibitive;

7) Accreditation & Visitation: through close co-operation between the SBA and the ESA, the visitation programme has been re-activated, with the intention being to make such visits much more widely available;

8) Quality of Care: the proceedings of the mini-symposium will be submitted for publication, and the key points will provide a basis for future work. A draft policy paper on minimum monitoring standards was considered, will be published, and is intended to provide the basis for political lobbying within a Patient Safety directive;

9) Emergency Medicine: the core curriculum has now been published in the European Journal. Current work involves a review of inter-hospital emergency transfers;

10) Post-operative care: a draft policy paper is nearing completion, following which it will be submitted for publication;

11) Pain Medicine: the President provided a report on progress in this area, with the aim of a MJC.

12) The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.

13) The next meetings of the SBA will be held in Copenhagen on 31st May 2008, during the ESA annual conference, then in Riga on 12th December 2008.