We now all live in unprecedented times. In years to come we will all tell our children and great grand children what we did in the pandemic of 2020. We live in such a connected world that we can find out what is happening around the world. For many of this it may be a frightening time for others they may just be exhausted by the work we have to do.

For some members of the BNMS it may mean work as normal with extra precautions slowing procedures as it is required to wear PPE. For others some departments have closed or reduced activity leading to some of you being furloughed. Other of you have been reassigned to help in the fight against COVID-19 working on COVID wards, working in X-ray or CT, repairing ventilators or PAT testing new equipment. Some of you may have even been sent to new hospitals where everything is unfamiliar. For all our members this has been a trying time and I am immensely proud of all you have been doing and continue to endure.

We have started a special COVID page on our web site for people to share any relevant scans, information etc and of course we have our guidelines written primarily by the nuclear medicine teams in Liverpool and Birmingham and this will be updated each week if there is new advice we need to give.

As for the BNMS there have been changes which we have to implement. The office staff now work from home which because of our new web-based systems we installed last year has worked well. The next major issue was the annual meeting of the BNMS we were due to have been held next month in Liverpool. The officers of the BNMS needed to consider what to do. Clearly, we would not be able to meet partly as the lockdown may still be in place and also many of you have had all your leave cancelled. The next question was could we delay the meeting to the autumn and replace the Leeds autumn meeting but we were unable to find a suitable time Liverpool could rebook the conference and in reality, we do not know how the situation will resolve. It was therefore decided with a heavy heart to cancel this years Annual meeting. We will transfer all this year’s lectures and accepted talks and posters to Belfast in May 2021. This decision was not taken lightly we were all aware that this would be a major disappointment to all those who put so much work into their abstracts.

One bit of good news is that the present scientific and education committee have agreed to stay in post for an additional year so the planned changes for May 2020 will take place in May 2021.

We hope to hold the AGM in the autumn meeting in Leeds which we really hope as many of you can come to as possible. This will mean the present BNMS council and Officers will remain in place till then. As a consequence, you are all stuck with me as President till September and elections for council will be held in August. These are just plans. Circumstances may still change everything and we ask for your patience. We will be looking at holding some of our June meetings by teleconferences.

My final wish, keep safe all of you.

Dr John Buscombe

BNMS President