Dr Amit Arora, creator of world-renowned reconditioning campaigns, to become next BGS President Elect

The British Geriatrics Society (BGS) is delighted to announce that Dr Amit Arora has won the election to be its next President Elect. Dr Arora will officially take up the role during the BGS Autumn Meeting on 20 November 2024. He will be supporting the incoming BGS President, Professor Jugdeep Dhesi, for a period of two years, and will then become President himself from November 2026.

Dr Arora is the creator of the highly successful deconditioning awareness and prevention campaign 'Sit Up, Get Dressed and Keep Moving!’. Last year he led a follow-up campaign, ‘Recondition the nation’. Both campaigns have been adopted by hospitals across the UK and abroad. He is credited with rejuvenating the term ‘deconditioning’ to describe the functional decline experienced by older people when they are not physically active, due to illness or disability.

Dr Arora is a Consultant Geriatrician at the University Hospitals of North Midlands and Associate Medical Director at Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. He is currently the BGS Vice President for Workforce and was previously BGS Chair of the England Council. He was previously a member of the Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board in England. He has served on a number of NHS England and Department of Health and Social Care committees, advisory bodies and working groups. He chaired the West Midlands Quality Review Service for people living with dementia and frailty, advising commissioners and provider organisations.  He is also the founding director of the National Frailty Academy which is providing free frailty training to all grades of health and social care workers.

Dr Arora is clinical lead for the NIHR West Midlands Clinical Research Network. Dr Arora’s research, editorials, reviews and national reports have appeared in more than 100 publications.

President of the BGS, Professor Adam Gordon MBE, commented:

I am delighted that Dr Amit Arora has been elected as the next President Elect of the BGS. I know he will provide excellent support to Professor Jugdeep Dhesi when she becomes President in November 2024. Amit is a widely respected geriatrician, whose commitment to older people’s care is exemplified in the influential campaigns he has led to address the problem of deconditioning. I am confident he will use his highly innovative advocacy skills, as well as his considerable clinical and research knowledge, to advance the care of older people and the specialty. Our sincere thanks to all three candidates in the recent election for their dedication to the Society’s mission of improving healthcare for older people.”

Dr Amit Arora commented:

I am absolutely humbled, honoured and delighted to have been elected to serve as the next President Elect of the British Geriatrics Society, and then to be its President from November 2026. I look forward to working further with the Society and our membership to build on its outstanding work to improve and transform healthcare for older people.”