Forward

BASK was set up in the early 1980s to represent knee surgeons within Britain. The association provides a forum for research, education and advise on all
aspects of healthcare management for knee surgery.

The current membership of BASK includes 611 members of which 544 are full members, 34 trainees and 33 senior fellows. Currently there are 12 female members (as at September 2019).

BASK aims to incorporate equality within our core objectives enabling equal opportunities and developing good working relationships to eliminate
discrimination within our association. We wish to make opportunities for training, development and progress available to all our members to ensure their
talents and resources can be fully utilized to maximise the success of the association.

Academia and business have both acknowledged the lack of diversity historically present and acted upon this. The formation of the Athena Swan
Charter in 2015 encouraged academic institutions to recognize commitment to advancing the careers of women in science. The 30% club launched as a
campaign within the UK in 2010 and has since spread to fourteen other countries. It has driven change within business organisations that recognize
that diversity contributes to better all round board performance and ultimately better corporate performance for both companies and share holders.

 

Our vision

The aim for BASK is to be truly representative of all knee surgeons in Britain and for each member to feel respected and included. We aim for our Executive
Committee to be representative of the diversity of our full members. We acknowledge the under-representation of women within surgical specialities
generally, and within Orthopaedic surgery specifically, and consequently BASK aims to promote knee surgery as a subspeciality for female orthopaedic
surgeons and develop a culture and environment within BASK that would make them want to become BASK members. We aim to provide equality, fairness
and respect for all our members and not unlawfully discriminate because of the Equality Act 2010 protected characteristics of age, disability, gender
reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race (including colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origin), religion or belief,
sex (gender) and sexual orientation.

Our Principles

We aim to support a policy of equal opportunities and diversity by producing a strategic framework that is fully supported by our executive. We will review our
practices and procedures to ensure fairness and update them to take into account any changes in the law. We aim to regularly monitor the membership
of our society to determine the diversity of our membership and ensure it meets the aims and commitments set out in our strategy.

Strategic framework

Our strategy for the next three years from 2020 to 2022 within BASK is to accelerate the progress of improving diversity within our association.

In order to achieve this goal our strategic framework outlines the actions BASK will need to take as an organization to support our strengths and increase
diversity in all areas:

  • Measurable goals with defined timelines
  • Change driven by the executive committee
  • Openness to change

The strategy should be reviewed in three years to ensure the goals set have been achieved, with yearly metrics of membership and annual meeting representation.

Our objectives over the next three years are:

  1. Diversity at executive level: the Executive Committee should be representative of the membership.
  2. Diversity of membership: the membership should be representative of orthopaedic surgeons in Britain and society as a whole.
  3. Diversity of chairs at our annual conference: chairs should include experts in the field and improved female representation and inclusion of
    Associate members.
  4. Invited speakers from a varied background: speakers should be from a varied background on relevant topics for the membership
  5. Increasing the numbers of female members: a recruitment drive to encourage female knee surgeons to join the society and contribute
  6. Improving mentorship and networking: supporting our membership and mentoring groups that are under represented within the society (e.g.SAS) to ensure the future membership is diverse
  7. Increasing trainee participation within the association: engagement with BOTA, encourage Associate membership for senior trainees, trainee prizes, training courses to ensure the association supports early years members
  8.  Affiliate membership: providing AHPs and basic scientists the opportunity to joint the society as affiliate members

The current perceived risks to the successful delivery of our objectives include:

  • A lack of diversity within the surgical specialities and Orthopaedic surgery.
  • Lack of detailed diversity information on our members or of other surgical specialities to allow comparison
  • BASK exec focus on short-term strategies without long-term sustainable investment in encouraging diversity
  • Prioritisation of other projects within the exec committee strategic planning

In summary our next steps as an association should be to gather diversity information about our membership and support a long-term strategy to improve diversity within our organization with the support of our membership.