2024 - A year in review

It’s that time of year when individuals and organisations reflect on the year that is drawing to a close and look ahead to the opportunities presented by the coming year and BGS is no exception to this. It has been a busy year for members and officers who volunteer their time to support the work of the Society and for the staff team at Marjory Warren House.

In one way or another, the year has been dominated somewhat by politics, and so this blog will focus on the policy developments at the BGS in 2024.

We spent the first few months of the year expecting a general election to be called during the autumn, only to be surprised by Rishi Sunak’s announcement in May (on the first day of our Spring Meeting no less) of an election in early July. Luckily we had been working on our election manifesto for some time and were able to finalise our asks in time to announce at the Policy Breakfast the next morning with the full manifesto being published a week or so later.

The election resulted in a majority Labour Government led by Sir Keir Starmer with Wes Streeting MP being appointed as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care with responsibility for services in England only as health is a devolved issue. The new Labour Government were elected on promises to address waiting times and reform social care, among other health commitments. Labour Party conference in Liverpool presented an early opportunity for BGS to engage with the new Government. Our then President, Professor Adam Gordon, attended the conference and spoke on a panel on end-of-life care attended by Ashley Dalton MP, one of Wes Streeting’s Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPSs). We then co-hosted a roundtable discussion with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. This event was attended by Dr Zubir Ahmed MP, Wes Streeting’s other PPS, as well as colleagues from Age UK, National Voices, the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation. We have a follow up meeting with Dr Ahmed before Christmas to further discuss how we work together.

One of the first steps for the new Secretary of State was to commission Lord Ara Darzi to conduct a full review of the NHS. This review highlighted the challenges posed to the system by an ageing population with increasing levels multimorbidity. The review did not find anything that will come as a surprise to BGS members but the focus on the ageing population was very welcome as the Government moved into the development of the NHS 10 Year Plan for England, led by Sally Warren who joined DHSC from the King’s Fund for this purpose. BGS has fed into the development of the plan and eagerly awaits the publication of the plan in spring 2025.

During the pre-election period, we hosted a roundtable discussion with Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Professor Sir Steve Powis and leaders from across health and social care to discuss priorities older people’s healthcare. In his 2023 annual report, Sir Chris set out a challenge to make the health and life chances of older people a national priority. Shortly after the election we published a report from the roundtable outlining ways to achieve this challenge, focused on the themes of a skilled workforce; better use of data and technology; social care and housing; prevention and healthy lifestyles; and integration of services.  

Workforce has once again been an enduring theme for BGS this year with the publication of two workforce reports in February. The report from our membership survey showed that for many BGS members, staff shortages are having considerable impact on the quality of care that they are able to provide to older people and on their own mental and emotional wellbeing. This was followed by our analysis of the RCP census which once again highlighted the shortage of consultant geriatricians, something mirrored across other professions caring for older people. In September, we launched the #ChooseGeriatrics campaign which aims to celebrate the variety and rewards of a career in older people’s healthcare. The campaign includes a #ChooseGeriatrics ambassador programme where BGS members from across the multidisciplinary team are encouraged to promote older people’s healthcare at careers’ fairs and through sharing their career journeys. Externally to BGS, we were pleased to see the junior doctors’ industrial action resolved but disappointed that there has been no progress on delivery of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. The new Government says it will refresh the plan in summer 2025 which is heartening, but it does feel there has been minimal progress in  the 18 months since the plan was first published.

On a similar workforce note, many of the workforce debates this year have included discussions about the role of physician associates in the NHS. BGS has been clear throughout this debate that the care of older people requires the skills and expertise of a range of professions. We support the physician associates who are members of the BGS and we are prepared to help develop a scope of practice for physician associates working in older people’s healthcare, which addresses the issues raised around supervision, training and responsibilities.

In 2023, we published Joining the dots, our blueprint outlining what high-quality, age-attuned care for older people with frailty looks like. This year we built on this with deep dives into two of the seven touchpoints in the Blueprint. Firstly, we published Reablement, Rehabilitation, Recovery: Everyone’s business which looks at the evidence behind the provision of rehabilitation for older people and highlighting examples of best practice from across the UK and internationally. Later in the year, we published two documents around proactive care – one sharing the evidence behind proactive care and the other setting out how proactive care can be delivered in a primary care setting. We hope that members will find these documents useful in their own practice and in making the case for proactive care to commissioners and decision-makers.

The issue of assisted dying has been in the media this year with bills that would legalise assisted dying going through Parliament in both Holyrood and Westminster. The BGS Ethics and Law SIG led a working group to review our position on this issue and update our position statement. Our new position was published in October and BGS remains opposed to the legalisation of assisted dying. We are not confident that effective safeguards can be developed to protect older people from unwarranted harms of assisted dying. We also believe that end of life and palliative care provision needs to be improved before assisted dying is introduced and that more needs to be done to de-medicalise death and ordinary dying. We will continue to engage in this debate as it continues into next year.

At this time of year as many people start to wind down for the holiday season, we are very conscious that our members are definitely not winding down. While ‘winter pressures’ have turned into year-around pressures, it is still very much the case that the colder months are tougher in the health and social care services. We published a refreshed winter statement, calling on the new Government to take steps to relieve the pressure. Our Policy Committee has also published 12 actions to help manage winter pressures which sets out some steps that individuals can take to help make the situation slightly better this winter.

We hope that you all get a chance to have a break of some description over the coming weeks and if you are working over the holiday period, thank you. Please look after yourselves and each other and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with you all to improve healthcare for older people in 2025.