Message from the BOPA Committee Co-Chairs

We wanted to touch base with you all and to let you know that your committee are here for you.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind and both our work and personal lives have been turned upside down. Our individual experiences to date will differ based on whether we work in the community, district general hospital, the independent sector, a cancer centre or any of the many other wide ranging roles our members have. One thing we will all have in common is the concern for our patients and how we help to get them through the next few months as safely as we can. Our clinical teams have been working hard to prioritise treatments in the event our capacity cannot meet demand, and our consultant colleagues are having to help individual patients make difficult and potentially life changing decisions in these unprecedented times.

It’s more important now than ever before that we support each other as a community. We would like to encourage you to use the forums to reach out for support and with any queries that you have. Please also feel free to contact the committee through our website or email address [email protected]  if you don’t feel comfortable using the forums. We are fortunate in that we have most sectors of practice covered within the Executive Committee and the sub-Committees and we will do what we can to help.

We want to highlight that we have put together a COVID-19 resource page https://www.bopa.org.uk/membergroups/covid-19-resources/, which is publicly available so please feel free to share with colleagues even if they are not members. If you have any content that you would like shared on this page, please submit it via https://www.bopa.org.uk/upload-a-resource/.

We also want to let you know that whilst it will be far from our members priorities at the moment, the Executive Committee will be (virtually) meeting in the next couple of weeks to discuss whether to proceed with the BOPA 2020 Symposium as planned, given the evolving situation. We will keep you updated as soon as any decisions are made.

Stay safe and take care of yourselves and each other

Emma and Seonaid 
Co-Chairs BOPA Committee

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