The ASPC Council

I have been audit lead since 2007 firstly with BANSV (British Association of Surgeons in Primary Care) and now with the ASPC.

I helped write the only national Patient feedback questionnaires for Vasectomies, Carpal Tunnel Operations and Skin Surgery. I am honoured that the vasectomy questions will soon be endorsed by the FSRH.

Having been vice-president to both BANVS and ASPC in previous years, I was honoured to accept the role as President of the ASPC in May 2023.

Throughout my many years on the ASPC board I have contributed ideas, thoughts, actions, organised and run conferences and worked tirelessly to promote the ASPC and to help support and better our members.

My work as audit lead means I update the questionnaires in a yearly basis, collect, collate, and present the yearly audit results in time for the annual Conference, and field questions most days relating to audit collection.

With one landmark paper pertaining to ASPC audit data published in 2021, I have been working on 3 different papers on further ASPC audit data publications in the last 12 months, one recently published with 2 further papers hopefully published before the next ASPC conference.

I am semi-retired, still undertaking GP roles working in a community hospital setting (including palliative work), the occasional GP locum, clinical director to 2 private companies, and work closely with Marie Stopes Vasectomy UK, in my position as their Independent External Advisor, with the hope that I can bring their surgeons into the ASPC fold. In 2017 I retired from all surgery following my catastrophic eye injury, now thankfully resolved following a corneal transplant.

My aims for my time as President of the ASPC is expanded elsewhere, but in essence I hope to expand our membership, reaching out to the next generation of surgeons in primary care and rejuvenate the ASPC board, whilst seeking recognition for the ASPC through further audit publications.

Having served as academic lead, education lead, vice president and an unprecedented 5 years as president, I have now stepped back to a role of supporting the shiny new president and his agenda.

I remain education lead, with overarching sight of events organised by the council and the various specialist leads whilst continuing the minor surgery, minor surgery update and joint injection courses for GPs.

I have recently stepped down as Treasurer but look forward in continuing my roles as Vice President and Vasectomy Training Lead for the ASPC.

I bring a variety of experience to the ASPC along with association memory, wisdom(?), Medico-legal experience, vasectomy training expertise.

Within my role I advise members on vasectomy matters especially training needs. I worked with the FSRH in a new vasectomy training curriculum and a new Vasectomy Standard.

I intend to complete joint working with FSRH re training and standards. I will continue to encourage more doctors to train others in vasectomy and increase number of trainers.

I qualified from the University of Liverpool in 1998, set on a career in Trauma & Orthopaedics. My orthopaedic training continued in the Mersey Deanery, until I did my Hand Fellowship in Birmingham.

I have now been a consultant in NHS Lothian since 2013, concentrating solely on hand and wrist surgery.

I am a passionate trainer and have been an examiner for the FRCS (T&O) for the last 4 years. When not in work, I can be found under the waves of the sea of the West Coast of Scotland or the North Sea.

My role within ASPC is quite varied, ranging from business intelligence to research. I run RCGP-accredited minor surgery courses nationally and signpost the trainees and experienced primary care surgeons to enrol with ASPC and avail the benefits that this organisation delivers. I undertake around two thousand minor surgery procedures per year including skin surgery, hand surgery and vasectomies.

On the research side, I have a full-fledged research team including a Chief Scientific Officer, PhD students, nurses, and a newly appointed Data Scientist. This will enable me to publish the enormous data ASPC have collected over the years and present this in various journals.

Over the last few months, I have worked on a primary care circumcision model and feel that there is a lot of appetite to bring it to primary care due to the left shift being more advanced and accepted now in the NHS.

I also work as a Place Based Lead for the ICB which helps me understand the direction of system travel and my role can help bring about a change as to how minor surgery (anything under local anaesthesia), day care surgery and endoscopies are delivered in out of hospital settings.

I am a graduate of the Medical School at QUB (2000) and gained my MRCGP in 2004. I am a full time GP and GP trainer.

I have a special interest in primary care surgery and gaining enhanced skills.

I gained my post graduate diploma in Minor Surgery in 2008, and then my MRCS in 2010. I was involved in setting up and working in a Primary Care Surgery Service in Derry in 2012, which initially dealt with patients who were on a waiting list for the local elective surgical unit, and later accepted direct referrals from GPs from neighbouring practices.

I am currently a GP Clinical lead and trainer for Primary Care Surgery and Vasectomy for the Federation.

I am interested in governance, training and education for GP surgeons.

I am a Council member for the UK wide Association of Surgeons in Primary Care.

I am interested in the development of further roles for Primary Care Surgeons to include Basal Cell Cancer excision and Carpal tunnel surgery.

I am the newly appointed Treasurer for the ASPC. As Treasurer, I hope to make sure we have smooth running over our finances, use the money to benefit our members and maintain accounts for ASPC.

As I am based in Liverpool and with my surgeon’s hat on as a fellowship holder from 2 royal colleges, I am happy to advise the council on queries and be representative for members in the north of the country.

I was involved with running the Dermatoscopy Study Course in January 2023 along with Miguel Arbide. The course was very successful and look forward to the ASPC holding more events such as this.

I have, in the past, supported the president as Vice president in terms of making decisions on queries, answered calls and emails.

I would like to be an approved trainer for vasectomy and pass on my surgical skills to future primary care surgeons. I plan to get my surgical service inspected by ASPC and be approved as trainer, as I am already a GP registrar trainer.

I am the Vasectomy Joint Training Lead for the ASPC, overseeing the ASPC NSV training in conjunction with Tony Feltbower.

I support Tony in his role as Vasectomy Guardian for the FSRH aiming to produce a common NSV training package, mode of assessment and qualification.

With our esteemed President I’ve recently had a paper published and another is well underway using ASPC audit data. I am also lead author on another study on semen testing post vasectomy which I hope to publish in the FSRH journal. I should like to think that the results of this paper will promote changes to the vasectomy PVSA guidelines, increasing compliance and simplifying the process.

In my new role as Vice President, I intend to support the President achieve the goals he has set.

I will also bring a dermatology perspective to the board, as well as experience from active minor surgery and vasectomy work.

In my time on the board so far I have led in the planning and delivering of a Dermatoscopy Study Day for the ASPC in January 2023. It was organised with the collaboration of Dr Alexander and excellent support of our admin team Paula and Ross, and advice from Dr Lim. The course was successful and well received by its delegates.

At last year's conference, I presented at one of the vasectomy workshops.

I am active in the WhatsApp groups, particularly in the skin group, and happy to advise and answer questions where possible. I have also collaborated with the initial planning of the website.

Once or twice a year, I lecture to GPs locally and promote the benefits of joining the ASPC during those lectures.

Going forward in my role, I intend to be available for regular discussion and planning to help develop the ASPC.

I act as skin surgery lead on the ASPC council. I am a Schedule 2 practitioner in plastic Surgery and work under the Title GPwER (GP with Extended Role). I operate on the full range of skin cancers including Melanoma and non- Melanoma Skin cancer performing skin grafts and flaps for reconstruction where needed. I am based at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford but have links to St George's Hospital in London.

I have led on skin surgery issues for the last 3-4 years for the ASPC and have spoken at Conference and introduced a guest speaker for the last conference as well as leading on skin surgery workshops for the last 2 conferences. I help Soon run his training courses when he needs me.

I hope to continue in my role and would like to develop further offering guidance and training to GP colleagues as they require it.

I am the lead for the ASPC Blog on the new website and the Supporting Treasurer to Manu Alexander.

I have been a council member for a year now and I have contributed to ASPC board proactively during this period. My role is to develop the Blog on the new ASPC website which will give valuable information relevant to our members providing surgical services in primary care. It will also be a platform for publishing articles and sharing clinical experiences of members.

I will also be supporting the Treasurer in dealing the financial transactions and the accounts of ASPC.

My aspiration is to establish the ASPC Blog as soon as new website is completed and engage with ASPC members via this platform. I have started to put my ideas on the Blog together and will share with the council members very soon. A successful Blog could be a prelude to ASPC Journal in the future.

My view is that we can increase the ASPC membership through workshops and promoting training in the practical/ technical aspects of surgical care e.g. Vasectomy training/courses, Minor Surgery courses including injection techniques, and Aesthetic courses. My belief is that the ASPC needs to become a hands-on training organisation.

I am very committed to the ASPC as I feel it has the potential to engage with primary care surgeons in diverse surgical specialities.

Yen trained at King’s College, London and embarked on surgical training and gained her Membership to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and worked as a surgeon for eight years, before re-training to be a GP. She is now a part-time GP in Wallington, Surrey and performs carpal tunnel decompression and no scalpel vasectomies in the community and is a trainer in Carpal Tunnel Surgery in the Community.

She is the hand Surgery Lead for the ASPC and represents the small number of CTS surgeons in ASPC. She can sign post members towards CTD trainers and offer advice on training. Her aspirations are to help develop a training pathway for CTD and to continue to promote ASPC membership to primary care surgeons as a gold standard.

I am the current Provost of ASPC

I trained as abreast and Colorectal surgeon mostly in West Country with short stints in the USA & France.

I am based in Yorkshire.

I represent the ASPC at the Royal College of GPs, Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland on their board & Represent ASPC in Royal college of Surgeons- Edinburgh As the Provost and one of the last of the founding members, I have guided and supported our colleagues to take on a lead role in ASPC, support and offer peer support to members. I actively participate locally in the ICB in highlighting Primary Care operating and train doctors in community surgery.

I also Fly ASPC’s role at home and elsewhere the world where I'm invited to speak yearly. such a Slovenia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, and more recently Kyrgyzstan, and in the Middle East. I continue to operate in the community, support governance & have a special interest on patient safety.

I'm the Trainee Rep for the ASPC.

My role is to improve the ASPC's visibility to trainees, and all trainers / clinicians, by having the ASPC deliver some of the VTS teaching sessions, and by increasing our social media presence.

I aim to make primary care surgery training accessible to all trainees, and to ensure that our voices are heard when developing new courses and study days.

Before transferring to general practice, I worked as a general surgical registrar in the West Midlands deanery, with a specialist interest in colorectal. I'm currently an ST2 in Rugby, working at 60% LTFT, and appear to be inadvertently going for the record of longest serving trainee ever! Being in training this long has given me a unique perspective on how to get the most out of the VTS, and developing new surgical skills has been one of the most rewarding so far.

I have a wealth of experience in teaching, both in medical education, and in surgical training with the RCSEd, and aim to put this to good use in the ASPC.

I did my undergraduate training at Sussex University and gained a First-Class Honours BSc in Molecular Medicine, and then went on to study graduate-entry medicine at Warwick Medical School where I gained my MBChB with Honours. I obtained my MRCS (Ed) in 2015.

I am the World Vasectomy Day representative.

I propose to liaise with the worldwide organisation to host a Uk event. We will educate the public, motivate the medics and encourage the commissioners.

We will strive to open vasectomy to more men locally, nationally and internationally.

I serve as the secretary at ASPC, having joined in April 2022 after almost 20 years with the NHS. In my NHS journey, I dedicated 16 years to the Out of Hours service and later embraced diverse roles within a GP practice, focusing on patient service and administration duties. In my last four years, I took on the role of a GP secretary.

At the ASPC, my responsibilities include managing the administrative tasks and overseeing membership matters. I also contribute to organising our study days and conferences. On the email front, I'm your point of contact, committed to providing efficient and effective assistance to your enquiries.

I have been supporting the ASPC since 2018 and focus most of my attention on planning the conference and managing our IT systems. My background and current role in Primary Care enables me to be able to share a management perspective on the functions and policies of the ASPC. With the support of Paula, we manage all of the administration functions, including running the annual conference.