The British Society for Interventional Radiology (BSIR) has set up an interventional radiology (IR) registry to capture a glimpse of the scope, breadth and immediate complication rate provided by the service in the UK. In parallel, UK interventional radiologists are bent on building a strong case for IR units to have their own day-case facilities, as these enabled the subspecialty to take pole position during the pandemic as a great resource for image-guided interventions and activity in a COVID-19- secure environment.
Other milestones to mark and challenges to navigate include interventional oncology advances such as the final draft National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance recommending the use of selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), supporting interventional radiologists who are not formally recognised as paediatric specialists but performing paediatric interventions in “bits and pieces” and getting direct preferencing for radiology registrars into interventional radiology, so that from 2022, they will be “badged as an interventional radiologist, all the way through their training”.
Alex Barnacle (London; BSIR communications chair), Peter Littler (Newcastle; the 2021 Scientific Programme Committee chair), Ian McCafferty (Birmingham; current BSIR president) and Phil Haslam (Newcastle; incoming BSIR president) discuss these developments ahead of this year’s BSIR annual scientific meeting in Glasgow next week (8–10 December, Glasgow, UK).
