Why Become a Member of the ASPC?

We are delighted to introduce you to what the ASPC has to offer, and we hope to inspire your enthusiasm for delivering surgical procedures in the community!  

Join us today in working towards our vision of providing a high-quality, readily available Surgical services in Primary Care to patients throughout the UK.  

 

So, who are the ASPC? 

We are the only national organisation that represents portfolio GP’s (or GPwSI), Hospital Consultants, Doctors-in-Training, plus other clinicians and administrative staff who provide surgical services in the community, whether that be for the NHS or the private sector. 

The ASPC supports any surgical procedure that can be performed using local anaesthetic, focusing mainly on the 3 most common community procedures: Vasectomy, Carpal Tunnel Decompression, and all levels of Skin surgery (from excision of benign skin lesions to the more complex wide local excisions of skin cancers and skin flaps). 

 

The ASPC also encompasses non-surgical disciplines that our members either already practice, or have ambitions to expand their clinical skills to, such as 

  • Dermatoscopy 

  • General Practice POCUS (Point of Care UltraSound) 

  • Non-Surgical Aesthetics  

 

The ASPC council and its members are passionate about providing high quality, safe, effective, and efficient surgical procedures in community settings allied with the benefits to both the local population and the NHS that an expansion of surgery closer to home under local anaesthetic provides.  

We also exists to provide support, research, governance, audit, peer review, training, education, and professional development for all providers of surgical procedures in the community. 

 

If not us, then who? 

Surgeons in the community tend to work in isolation so: 

  • who are you going to turn to when you need support? 

  • where can you gain up to date education relating to your surgical speciality? 

  • how will you be kept informed of latest news / views and studies? 

  • how will you access the latest ASPC patient questionnaires to use? 

  • how will you find the tools to collate your yearly audit sheet and compare yourselves with your peers? 

  • where else will you be able to network with like-minded, aspirational, groundbreaking GP’s, all like you, pushing the definition of what a primary care surgeon can offer to their local population. 

 

Learn more about us at our website: https://www.aspc-uk.net 

 

WE ALSO NEED YOU!  

The larger our association the more influence we will have in lobbying the NHSE and the Government in improving access for patients to community surgery, increasing your access to undertake more surgical procedures! 

 

‘Doctor ASPC Membership’ is available at just £120/year to: 

  • Medically Qualified GMC registered Doctors 

  • who are actively involved in providing community surgical services. 

  • who have previously worked in community surgical services or aspire to do so. 

That’s equal to the profit you would earn from just 1 to 3 surgical procedures…for a whole year, 

AND you can claim TAX RELIEF as the ASPC is registered as an HMRC approved professional body (list 3). 

And EVEN better, should you take advantage of our 25% discounted Conference tickets then your ASPC membership fee becomes a cost neutral expense! 

 

Other membership options 

But membership to the ASPC isn’t just for Doctors, we have numerous other membership options available at a reduced rates (or in some cases potentially free) for ALL your clinical and administration team.  

  • 'Administration Website membership’ is available to all your administrative team members for any organisation that provides community surgical services, or has ambitions to do so, and is specifically related to Audit delivery for that clinic. Membership is only £25/year. 

  • The organisation though MUST have at least one surgeon who is a fully paid up ASPC member. 

  • All surgeons of that organisation wishing to make use of the ASPC benefits should also be ASPC members independently. 

  • Membership at this level offers limited access to both the ‘Members Directory’ area of the ASPC website and ASPC social media whilst updates and newsletters will be restricted to administrative issues. 

  • ‘Affiliation to the ASPC membership’ is available to anyone who has an interest in community surgery, be they Nurses, HCA’s, HCPC’s and other allied clinical staff, senior administrative team members including personnel from ICB boards, plus any clinician who operates, and includes full website access and additional ASPC updates as compared to ‘Administration Website membership’. ‘Affiliation to the ASPC membership’ is available to individuals at only £25/year. 

  • ‘Trainee membership’ for those medically qualified GMC registered doctors who are still in training, whether they be on a GP Vocational training Scheme or on Hospital Surgical rotation. 

Membership is free for a year following attendance of out Annual conference, or £25/year outside of those times. 

  • ‘Retired Membership’ for previously medically qualified GMC registered doctors who have now fully retired from ALL clinical practice at a reduced price. 

  • ‘Medical Students Membership’ is available to those currently studying medicine at a UK university, at just £10 a year 

 

Member benefits include 

  • Support and networking. 

  • Full access to the ‘Members Only’ area of the ASPC website. 

  • Three times a year ASPC newsletter. 

  • Access to a network of individuals and practices working in this area of clinical practice which is evolving rapidly. 

  • Access to our members only ASPC Facebook page and WhatsApp support groups. 

  • Significantly Reduced Fees for our members to our Annual Conference and other Study days. 

  • Access to members-only educational materials on the recently relaunched ASPC website. 

  • Access to members-only local service development/CCG advice and materials. 

  • Earn up to 20 CPD points per year for attending the Annual conference, Study days, webinars, and submitting Audit submissions. 

  • Access to the national ASPC yearly Audits: Carpal Tunnel Decompression, Skin Surgery and the FSRH approved ASPC Vasectomy patient questionnaires (all updated yearly). 

  • Full support to enable your clinic to set up your questionnaires and obtain patient feedback, with step-by-step guides and videos giving you free access to collection tools such as SurveyMonkey,  Microsoft forms, and an exclusive self-populating Excel scoring sheet. 

  • Yearly submission of these audits as required for your appraisals that will show, not just how effectively run your clinics performance are, but also how your service compares with other surgical providers around the country. 

  • Access to ASPC trainers in surgical specialities such as Vasectomy and Carpel Tunnel Decompression. 

  • Peer review appraisal templates, another vital tool for your appraisals. 

  • Vasectomy consent checklist 

  • Opportunity for our GP's in training to be supported and helped in developing their portfolio skills. 

  • Those with Administrative Website Membership will not have all the above benefits available to them. 

 

Upcoming initiatives :  

  • A dedicated platform for non-GMC regulated clinicians who perform surgery. 

  • An ASPC approved Vasectomy Contract. 

 

Not only that, but… 

  • We support and provide guidance to ICB’s, Health boards and other commissioning organisations to roll out appropriately funded and designed community surgery contracts nationwide. 

  • We are your voice that is heard by NHSE, RCS, RCGP, CQC, GMC, LMC and other bodies, where the ASPC will act as a lobby group for its members, and have previously provide representation at national level. 

  • We also support our global health care colleagues providing training and surgery in the community across the world, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Haiti, Philippines and recently Zambia providing opportunities for members to work as volunteers abroad  

  • We are major contributors to the World Vasectomy Day movement. 

  • The ASPC also provides free reciprocal membership with the Primary care Surgical Association (PCSA) of the Republic of Ireland, and has close affiliation with FSRH, and other associations such as ASGBI, GPC, BADS, RCGP, ASIT. 

  • The ASPC’s close affiliation with the RCGP, allied with our previous work on accreditation regarding practitioners performing surgery in the community, means the association will be influential in producing future guidelines for both accreditation and appraisal. 

 

 

We’d love you to join the ASPC and add your enthusiasm to ours! 

Just click the ‘Join now’ link on the left at the top of the page