Welcome to the website of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland (ACPGBI). You are probably visiting because you have a specific interest or query about some aspect of bowel disease – either as a health professional looking for professional support, or as a member of the public seeking information about some aspect of bowel disease. Whatever your reason for coming to us through cyberspace, welcome: I very much hope you will find what you seek on our revamped website.
ACPGBI is a multiprofessional organisation, reflecting in its membership the diversity of expertise required to deliver and develop modern healthcare in this important area of medical practice. The bulk of our membership comprises surgeons – consultants and those in training – and specialist colorectal nurses, without whom comprehensive 24/7 care is simply impossible in today’s state health systems. Our membership also includes medical gastroenterologists, pathologists, radiologists, and oncologists, all of whom play key roles in our specialist area; and that area is wide, covering diseases that affect young and old, some serious, others debilitating but not threatening. In some cases these conditions may cause devastation to the lives of previously fit and active people, who, until illness entered their lives, may never even have realised the existence of Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, childbirth-induced faecal incontinence to highlight a few. Bowel cancer takes the lives of more than 20,000 people each year in Great Britain and Ireland. So-called ‘minor’ conditions include haemorrhoids, anal fissure and fistula, all of which cause considerable symptoms and disruption for very many people.
A key element of our work is to provide up to date information for practitioners and the public, and much of this is available on this website. The latest edition of our Guidelines on the management of bowel cancer have been published in the summer of 2007, while our position statements on a range of other conditions provides a rapid and lucid check for all who need this information.
Our main means of informing our membership of developments in the field is through our Annual Meeting, the next being in Birmingham in July 2008; shortly before that many of us will travel to Boston for our three yearly Tripartite meeting, at which specialists principally from Europe, North America and Australasia will come together to exchange ideas and forge links that may enhance our care, teaching and research.
Those who wish to examine the outcomes that we are able to offer in a range of colorectal conditions need go no further than the several audits contributed to by our members, and available for perusal on this site. Supreme amongst these is our cancer audit, which we hope will come to include all cases in the British Isles; submission of data will never have been more straightforward, via the secure web-based service; further details are available via the link to NBOCAP. Through such audits we can achieve increased understanding of the complexities of bowel cancer care, and gain opportunities to improve and expand our performance.
Yet another means for dissemination of specialist knowledge is through our official journal, Colorectal Disease; this increasingly influential journal has also been adopted as the official organ of the European and Spanish Societies of Coloproctology.
This year the ACPGBI has become an incorporated company, and our research associate, the Bowel Disease Research Foundation, has come more formally alongside as a subsidiary company. Much effort is being put in to raising money to enable our members to undertake research and to engage in career development opportunities at home and abroad.
Training the next generation of professionals in our field is a crucial part of our mission. We work closely with other bodies, particularly the Royal Colleges and the Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Project, to hone training and to enthuse those beginning the climb to senior independent practice.
For anyone that has come to our website previously, they will be able to see the fruits of the hard work and considerable time put in to making the site more user-friendly, comprehensive and relevant. We wish all our professional visitors fulfilment in their careers, and any member of the public coming here for whatever reason enlightenment and the reassurance that may come from increased understanding.
Nick Carr
President
This page was last updated on 25-01-2008