As you may remember, the Society took the decision in May 2020, at an extraordinary meeting of Council, to be at the forefront of the opportunity afforded by the pandemic: to reshape clinical care and delivery of training in endocrinology across the UK.

The project’s mission was ‘to transform clinical care, bringing together UK-wide expertise across clinical endocrinology to define the most effective, future-focused endocrinology service models and recommend how these are best implemented and sustained within the NHS post-COVID-19.’

Following an open call to the membership, the Future of Endocrinology working group was set up, chaired by John Newell-Price and Kristien Boelaert. All patient groups affiliated to the Society were asked for their input regarding what ‘good’ would look like for their community, and to suggest examples of the ways in which services could be improved.

The priority output of the group, ‘Planning for the COVID second wave’, was delivered in October 2020, with advice and resources published on the website. At the end of June 2021, outputs were delivered by the remaining sub-groups:

(a) education and training
(b) the primary care interface and
(c) digital care options and models of care (including patient self-care).

All four outputs were then pulled into one final report of recommendations, including exemplars, tools and resources, which members will have the opportunity to feedback on.

The Society’s Clinical Committee will consider how to support effective dissemination of the working group outputs and implementation of the recommendations. It will also look at setting the Committee’s future agenda, according to the key priorities raised, and determine how to review the associated impact.

Working group members will present a summary of the outcomes on 18 November at SfE BES 2021 in Edinburgh. We hope that the new Members’ Area Resource Hub will be launched at that time, with content written and curated by the working group.

From December 2021, members can provide their own items for the Resource Hub. This will become a valuable source of information, and we encourage all members to use it, and contribute information and resources as they see fit.