• CARDIAC PROCEDURES AND THERAPY

The BCS Annual Conference is evolving into a different beast from that which I recall both during my time as a trainee and more recently. During the 1990s, it seemed as though the Conference provided the focus for all cardiology-related activities in the UK, hosting the key individuals and research from all the subspecialties. I think it is fair to say that, with the subsequent emergence of the national subspecialist meetings, the Annual Conference lost its way to a large degree and with it a considerable proportion of its audience. It took a while for the Society to realise that change was needed if we were to host an event that shone out from the crowd. In the last few years, the focus has been on providing education across a broad spectrum of cardiovascular medicine, fulfilling the needs of cardiology trainees and the cardiovascular community more widely. Cardiologists now need a single meeting that can give them a perspective on all aspects of cardiovascular medicine that lie outside the interest of their particular subspecialty and the Annual Conference is the only event to provide this. The 2015 Conference saw a step-change in terms of increased collaboration with the British Heart Foundation, not only in terms of presentation of the highest quality cardiovascular research, but also in regard to the profile of the meeting to the wider public nationally. For the first time that I am aware, the Conference was the subject of editorial pieces in the national press and wider media coverage generally was very evident. The Programme Committee have recognised this trajectory and …