News

There are a number of opportunities coming up for members to serve across BASL and BLTG committees, so please get involved and help to shape the future of BASL.

BASL COMMITTEE POSTS:

BASL Treasurer - the Treasurer is one of three principal Officers of the Association, is elected by the membership and will serve for a period of up to three years and can be re-elected once.
Please find a role description here:  Download BASL_Treasurer_Role_Description_2025.pdf

NB: President, Secretary and Treasurer post holders must have different Institutional affiliation within the UK.

BASL Services Committee Lead - elected by the membership and will serve for a period of up to three years and can be re-elected once.
Please find a role description here:  Download BASL_Services_Lead_Role_Description_2025.pdf

BVHG Chair - elected by the membership and will serve for a period of up to three years and can be re-elected once.
Please find a role description here:  Download BASLBVHGChair_Role_Description_2025.pdf

Scientist Representative - elected by the membership and will serve for a period of up to three years and can be re-elected once.
Please find a role description here:  Download BASL_Scientist_Representative_Role_Description_2025.pdf

Communications and Website Lead - elected by the membership to serve for a period of up to three years and may be re-elected once.
Please find a role description here: 
Download BASL_Communications_and_Website_Lead_Role_Description_2025.pdf

NB: all of the posts holders above shall be registered with Companies House in the UK as a Director of BASL and registered with the Charities Commission as a Trustee.

OTHER POSTS:

BVHG Secretary - elected by the membership and will serve for a period of up to three years and can be re-elected once. The post holder will support the BVHG Chair, see Chair role description above.

BLTG Transplant Hepatology representative - elected by the membership to serve for a period of 2 and 3 years alternating - this post is for a period of 2 years. The successful applicant will be expected to attend and contribute to 1 face-to-face and 3 web-based BLTG committee meetings each year, and to the work of the committee.

All post holders will take up their roles after the BASL Annual Business Meeting in October 2025.

BASL is committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of its work. It is actively promoting equal opportunities and access for all our members regardless of their background. We would, therefore, encourage you to consider joining the BASL, BLTG or BLNA committees to help to shape the future of BASL and increase our inclusivity/inclusiveness.

NOMINATION PROCESS

Please send your nominations, clearly stating the position that your nomination is for to the BASL Secretariat at judy@basl.org.uk by the deadline of 23:59hrs

Monday 30th June 2025.

Candidates wishing to be considered for nomination must be a member of BASL and will require one BASL member to propose them and a second BASL member to confirm their suitability for the role in writing. (Proposing and seconding of candidates can be done by email.)

A personal statement, containing no more than approx. 300 words, will be requested at the time of nomination from all candidates. Permission will be requested to share the personal statements with the whole BASL membership. (Personal statements are intended for this purpose only.)

If more than 1 candidate is nominated for any of the above Committee posts, the BASL Secretariat will arrange for an election of members. The successful candidate for each post will be elected by a simple majority of those members voting.

Newly elected committee members will be announced at the next Business Meeting of the Association, which will be held during the BASL Annual Meeting in Belfast on Friday 10th October 2025, and join the respective committees thereafter.

If you need any more information, please do not hesitate to contact judy@basl.org.uk 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Please see a new report by the Social Market Foundation (SMF), commissioned by IAS and AFS, exploring how governments could address the retailer windfall profits generated by Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP).

As the AHA continues to make the case for introducing MUP in England, this report responds to one of the most frequent objections: that while MUP raises prices and reduces harm, it also boosts retailer profits – £65m in Scotland, and potentially £600m in England – while reducing Treasury alcohol duty receipts by around £300m.

The report considers various options to address this and concludes that the best solution is introducing a Minimum Unit Tax (MUT) alongside MUP – this would introduce a new tax floor on alcohol, similar to the existing minimum excise tax on cigarettes.

Institute of Alcohol Studies
Alcohol Focus Scotland

Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham is the home to Europe’s joint largest programme for liver transplantation, performing 200 procedures a year. Approximately 20% of these are for a cancer indication. In addition to Hepatocellular Carcinoma, the long-accepted cancer indication for liver transplantation, we are now developing programmes for new indications of Neuroendocrine Tumours, Colorectal Liver Metastases and Cholangiocarcinoma.

Birmingham has pioneered marginal organ utilisation and improvements in organ preservation allowing expansion of liver transplantation and its indications. We cover a quarter of UK for liver transplantation, and we are the home for the national MDT for patient selection for liver transplantation in NETs. This MDT has assessed 45 patients with successful liver transplantation having taken place in eight patients.

The Fellowship provides advanced training in Hepatology and Transplant Oncology.

• with exposure to liver transplant assessment and pathways.
• collaborations with the leading transplant clinicians from across UK and opportunities to present work at national and international liver and cancer conferences.

The academic work consists of clinical projects related to transplant oncology and basic science projects which will align with the Centre for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research (CLGR) at the University of Birmingham.  The CLGR has an international track record in studying liver immunology and liver fibrosis.  Previous fellows have undertaken highly successful projects supervised by clinicians and scientists providing excellent experience in a world leading research department.

This work leads to higher degree – MSc/MD.

Interested parties please contact the co-supervisors:

Dr Tahir Shah, Consultant Hepatologist and Head of Birmingham Transplant Oncology Programme at tahir.shah@uhb.nhs.uk 

Professor Shishir Shetty, Director of Biomedical Research Centre and Honorary Consultant Hepatologist at s.shetty@bham.ac.uk 

Previous Fellows can be contacted at Zaira.Rehman2@uhb.nhs.uk  and Rosie Faulkes Rosemary.Faulkes@uhb.nhs.uk 

The deadline for enquiries is Friday 27th June 2025.

The James Lind Alliance survey to prioritise unanswered research questions for liver cirrhosis is now open.

Whether you're a healthcare professional, patient, carer, family member, or researcher, all opinions matter.

What do you think are the priorities for liver cirrhosis research?

We are asking you to select the questions you think are important from a list of 38 possible research questions, then from your long list, choose your top 10 most important questions.

We also ask you to give some information about yourself so that we will know if the survey is reaching a wide audience and to help us target groups wherethere are a low number of responses. You can choose not to answer these questions.

The survey should only take 10 – 15 minutes.

Take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SMMF6XJ 

Closes: May 2nd 2025

The FSRH Clinical Effectiveness Unit is currently updating their guideline on the safety of contraceptive methods (the UKMEC). The UKMEC considers safety of use of contraceptive methods by individuals with a variety of personal characteristics or medical conditions: UK Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use.

They would like to secure some input from a liver disease expert to advise their Guideline Development Group and they would be very grateful for any help BASL members can give if someone is willing to assist them. 

They are seeking a topic expert with a broad knowledge of liver disease who could advise our Guideline Development Group on the following areas:

- Cholestasis
- Viral hepatitis
- Cirrhosis
- Liver tumours

It would involve an initial meeting with their Clinical Director and systematic reviewer to consider the evidence (about an hour) in April/early May. They would also ask the topic expert to attend, if possible, part of their UKMEC Guideline Development Group meeting, which is taking place on the afternoon of Monday 9 June 2025 (for a slot of about 1 hour). They would also ask the expert to review relevant sections of draft text for the guideline subsequently, if it is agreed that revisions are needed.

Participating in this project offers an opportunity to work with leading UK and international experts on national guidance as well as those from other specialties, gain experience in guideline development and be acknowledged for your contribution in the final guideline document.

The topic expert must be a consultant clinician currently working in the specified field. The topic expert must also be in good standing with the relevant professional body and not subject to fitness to practise proceedings. Previous experience in the development of guidelines would be welcome but is not essential.

Please note the role isn’t remunerated.

They would be delighted if one of our members would be able to help.  

If you are interested in assisting please contact: ceu@fsrh.org .