Annual report

COG Annual Report

The COG committee has met three times in the last year. In January Tony Ireland took over from Helen Knight as Chairman of the group while Andrew DiBiase has taken over as Honorary Secretary from James Spencer. The incumbent committee would like to thank Helen and James for their huge contribution to the group. A lot of the work and discussion has been around concerns or issues raised by members regarding perceived threats to the hospital service in their region. This has highlighted the lack of information the COG has about the working practice of its members and initiated a pilot survey on clinic booking which provided useful information for one department. This will be followed up with a wider survey and in the meantime the group continues to work closely with other groups in the society particularly OSG and OPC to promote and support the consultant service. The group has also kept its members and the TGG updated on vacant posts and is undertaking a survey of referral protocols nationally. The annual symposium was held over two days at the Royal College of Physicians in May, slightly later than usual due to the World Congress in February. It was very well attended and the Northcroft lecture was delivered by Dr Mike Mars on his research and clinical work in the field of cleft lip and palate.The rest of first day of the meeting was clinically based while the second day was mixture of research and management. The group had its general meeting in the afternoon and areas discussed included the new curricula and training in primary care.The consensus of the group was while we would like to work with the relevant parties to make these work it was important that the excellent training that the consultant service has been providing for many years was not dismantled or destroyed in the process. Finally the group is electing new members to replace Alison Murray (Treasurer) and Norman Hay who both leaving the group at the end of the year. The results will be announced at the AGM and we would like to thank both for all their hard work and support.

Tony Ireland

Chairman, Consultant Orthodontic Group