There was an excellent joint meeting between surgeons and anaesthetists at the Royal College of Anaesthesia on 28th April. The National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia and the RCA are keen to work with surgeons on collaborative audits and trials.

The first session was on funding with presentations from the Health Technology Assessment, Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation and Invention 4 Innovation funding bodies. It was clear that surgery and anaesthesia can do more to attract funding and that the funders are actively looking for ways to encourage this.

There were updates on the trainee networks within surgery and Dr Tom Clarke presented the anaesthetic trainees experience. They have recently set-up RAFT, a national body to co-ordinate the regional collaboratives.

The RSTN pitched an idea for an audit around perioperative fluid management in breast reconstruction. A discussion with the anaesthetists is ongoing – watch this space!