Current challenges in surgery

Professor Briggs is a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and National Director for Clinical Improvement and Elective Recovery for NHS England in November 2022. He is Chair of the GIRFT programme and leads the roll out of GIRFT methodology across all surgical and medical specialties.

Professor Briggs first conceived and developed the GIRFT programme to review elective orthopaedic surgery and address a range of observed and undesirable variations in orthopaedics. In the 12 months after the pilot GIRFT programme, it delivered an estimated £30m-£50m of efficiencies in orthopaedic care and improvement in patients’ outcomes.

Peter Wilmshurst who has been described as “a guardian of truth and integrity” is a Consultant Cardiologist and successful whistle-blower. Over two decades, he has successfully pursued drug companies whose products were ineffective or worse, at great sacrifice to himself.

Dr Wilmshurst tells several stories of medical leaders and institutions trying to hide research misconduct, and nobody has blown the whistle on such behaviour as often as Wilmshurst. He is now widely respected for what has done to help clean up medicine.

Professor Ian Curran is Vice Dean at Duke-NUS Medical School and Co-Director of the Academic Medicine Education Institute in Singapore. Professor Curran has a distinguished track record in medical education leadership, policy and professional regulation and is recognised as an expert in the field of medical education and transformational leadership.

Over the last 20 years, he has been a professional regulator, education commissioner, national policy adviser and international consultant in education and leadership development. He has been a clinical adviser to the UK Departments of Health, NHS England, and NHS Health Education England.

Prof Curran has given a wide range of prestigious national and international keynotes, plenaries and lectures including “The Royal College Lecture” at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2011. He has also advised the European Commission and consulted for several national and international governments on educational reform and transformational leadership. He is a Harvard Macy Scholar (2010) and was appointed as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions in Boston, USA in 2017.

Professor Peter Brennan is a NHS Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon in Portsmouth. He is a committed trainer and educator, collaborating across specialties and disciplines. Peter is Lead Editor of the new Gray’s Surgical Anatomy textbook and supervises important MRCS predictive validity and differential attainment research for the four Surgical Colleges. He has been Surgical Specialty Association (BAOMS) President, Chairman of the English College Court of Examiners and Intercollegiate Committee Chair for MRCS and DOHNS. He has recently led the MRCS major review. Peter is interested in human factors (HF) and patient safety, establishing unique collaborations with airline pilots, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team (Red Arrows). His work improves practice across surgical and medical specialties and includes reducing hierarchy, enhancing team working and raising awareness of many personal factors to reduce medical error.