Abstract submission

The British Geriatrics Society accepts submissions only through the online submissions facility. 

We encourage submissions from those at the start of their career. This includes medical, nurse and AHP students as well as Foundation Year, IMT and Clinical Fellows.

You will need an up-to-date browser to be able to use the on-line submission system. We suggest a browser other than Microsoft Edge.

Date of submission. Abstracts must reach the BGS administrative office by the deadline date indicated in the table above.

Limitation on submissions. Only 3 (THREE) abstracts per investigator as first author are allowed.

Word Count limits: 128 Characters for the Title, 70 words for Authors, 70 words for Provenance. 

Corrections - Make sure that the abstract you submit is correct. DO NOT phone, write or resubmit the same abstract with modifications without contacting us. If you experience anything like this please contact the Abstract Manager on 0207 608 8574 or via abstracts@bgs.org.uk.

Submit each abstract ONCE only and do so by the deadlines specified.

The maximum word count is 370 words. The total word count for the fields ‘Title, Authors and Provenance’ is up to 70 words. The maximum word count for the field ‘Abstracts Editor’ is 300 words. The online system will not accept anything over this limit. Please note that that wordage will be calculated slightly differently by the on-line system compared to text editors such as Microsoft Word. This is because your abstract needs to fit into a defined space when published in the abstract book.

Title and Author Details

• Title (using Title Case)

The maximum word count for these three fields is 128 characters (around 30 words.)

• Authors (initials then surname, using capitals without any full stops separated by a semi-colon: e.g. J Smith1; P Jones1; T Renwick 2)
• Provenance (i.e. place of work separated by a semi colon e.g. 1. Southampton University; 2. Dept of Elderly Care, Cardiff University Hospital)
• The maximum word count for these two fields is 70 words.

Abstract

• To be submitted in the field ‘Abstracts 
• The maximum word count for this field is 300 words.
• Layout - Type the subheading (e.g. Introduction), go down one line, then type the text on the next line. Put a blank line space in between each of the four sections.
• Tables and figures should not be included in your Abstract.
• Macros. Do NOT use macros within abstracts. No embedded objects from outside sources are allowed (e.g. graphs, pictures).
• Content - The abstract must include sufficient information (e.g. numerical, statistical or qualitative data) to allow an evaluation by the Research and Academic Development Committee and Clinical Quality Steering Group and to enable it to stand as a published abstract. Expressions such as “data will be presented” or findings will be discussed” are not acceptable and will result in automatic rejection of the abstract. The onus is on the author to check the spelling, grammar, and format of the abstract
• Language: Please refer to https://www.bgs.org.uk/languageguide for guidance on acceptable and unacceptable language. Use of perjorative terms such as ‘elderly’, ‘senile’, or ‘geriatric patient’ are not acceptable and will lead to rejection of the abstract.
• References - Do NOT include references in the Abstract
• Abbreviations- must be defined by being placed in parentheses immediately after the full word or phrase has been typed for the first time.
• Non-proprietary- (generic) names must be used for drugs.

Only click the box ‘Publications Disclaimer’ to request your abstract to be published in Age & Ageing. This only applies to BGS Spring and Autumn national conferences. By ticking this box you are confirming that the abstract or full paper has not been published previously.

All authors must indicate whether or not the work carried out has approval from a Research Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board. This may be a University research ethics committee, a health service ethics research committee (e.g. NHS Research Ethics Committee in the UK), or a social care research ethics committee.

Please note that some research may not require ethical approval depending on local requirements and the type of work undertaken. If you did not obtain ethics approval, please provide a statement explaining why your research did not require ethical approval. If the work was not submitted for research ethics approval and the methodology is adjudged by the Academic and Research Committee/CPEC as requiring research ethics approval, the abstract will be rejected.

Please select ‘Research Ethics approval obtained’ or ‘Research Ethics approval NOT obtained’ when clicking on the field ‘Ethics disclaimer’:

• If you answer ‘Research Ethics approval obtained’ – please give name of approving organisation and approval number. This option should be also be selected if your work falls under a previously-obtained ethics approval (e.g. for research use of routine data, secondary use of data, use of large research databases such as UK BioBank)
• If you answer ‘Research Ethics approval NOT obtained’ – please state why research ethics approval was not sought (e.g. use of public data, staff survey, ethics committee did not wish to review)

Either type your abstract into the main abstract text field, or copy and paste your abstract from your Word Processed document, into the abstract text field.

Once you have completed all the fields, click the accept button to submit the abstract.

• Personal details- should include First and Last Name. The fields are mandatory.
• Category - Select Clinical Quality or Scientific Presentation. A sub-category list will appear and will depend on what you have selected as your main category. Select the most relevant.
• Profession - whether of consultant, registrar, Nurse or AHP (“non-consultant”)grade. Prizes are awarded to the best platform and poster presentation from a person who is not of consultant status (medical or professions allied to medicine) at the time of submission of the abstract.

Is your project audit or research?

Be clear about your objectives, and concentrate on these 3 key questions:

1. Is the purpose of your project to try and improve the quality of patient care?
2. Will the project involve measuring current practice against standards?
3. Does the project include anything being done to patients beyond their routine clinical management?

If your answers are 'yes' to the first 2 questions and 'no' to the third, your project is very likely to fall within the remit of clinical quality.

The following table gives further details regarding differences between research, audit and surveys

Research studies i.e. those that generate new knowledge, rather than evaluate practical implementation, even in the above domains, must be submitted to the scientific section of the meeting.

Case reports, case series and reflective practice abstracts are not eligible for submission as scientific presentations and will be rejected. Please consider alternative outlets for such work (e.g. journals such as the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh). Abstracts describing study protocols may be considered if the purpose of the abstract is to highlight particularly novel study designs or to highlight large multicentre studies likely to be of high interest to many BGS members. Abstracts describing trial protocols should include key information from the SPIRIT statement: https://spirit-statement.org/  

Presentation

The BGS has an online space for accepted abstracts to be shared, where your work can be viewed and navigated easily by as many relevant people as possible. You will asked to provide an electronic copy of your poster, and ideally share a recorded summary to discuss your project in more detail. This does not denote an oral presentation, but represents the discussion you would have had with the attendees face to face during the now established hybrid format.

In addition to abstracts being presented in poster format, future meetings will have a platform presentation session for the best Clinical Quality abstracts. This session will have a strong emphasis on sharing initiatives that have the potential to be adopted elsewhere, and discussion centred around implementation.

For Scientific Presentation abstracts use the following headings:

• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusions

Put a blank line space in between each of the four sections.

• Tables and graphs - are not supported. Please include your findings in your abstract text.
• Content - The abstract must include sufficient information (e.g numerical and statistical data) to allow its evaluation by the Research and Academic Development Committee Group and to enable it to stand as a published abstract. The guidance below should be followed and will be used by the adjudicators in ranking abstracts and making decisions on which abstracts to accept:
  • A brief background only is required – a couple of sentences usually suffices.
  • In the methods, include information on what the study design was, what the population, intervention/exposure/experimental conditions, and main outcomes were, and how you analysed the data.
  • Your results are what readers are most interested in, so please ensure that these are included. Abstracts noting that ‘Results will be presented’ or ‘findings will be discussed’ but giving no data will not be considered.
  • Abstracts should describe key aspects of the study population (e.g. number of participants, mean age, sex; for systematic reviews, number of titles, abstracts, full papers
  • For quantitative analyses, p values alone are not sufficient and will lead to abstract rejection. P values should follow an effect size, proportion, or other measure. Similarly, do not give percentages alone; these should follow a numerator and denominator.
  • Qualitative analyses should include key information on study participant numbers and characteristics, and at a minimum a summary of key themes identified by the analysis
  • Further research is always needed, so please do not include this in your conclusion. Ensure that your conclusion reflects the results that you present; one to two short sentences are usually sufficient to present conclusions.

The onus is on the author to check spelling, grammar and format of the abstract. Where English is not the native language of the author team, we strongly recommend seeking the assistance of a native English speaker with familiarity with the research topic to proof-read the abstract.

• References - include any references within the body of the text, in the format, author names (up to 3), Journal name, year, volume and page. Do not include the title.
• Abbreviations - must be defined by being placed in parentheses immediately after the full word or phrase has been typed for the first time.
• Non-proprietary - (generic) names must be used for drugs.

Please note:

Any abstract submitted under the category of Clinical Quality will be subject to an adjudication process –anything scoring less than 2 out of 5 will be rejected.

You will have the opportunity to receive feedback on successful submissions via the poster platform and at the Conference. Those that are not accepted can contact the abstracts manager via abstracts@bgs.org.uk

Acceptance criteria:

Abstracts may be submitted under the following 5 sub-categories: Clinical Effectiveness, Efficiency and Value for Money, Patient Centredness, Patient Safety, Improved Access to Service

To be accepted abstracts must:

• Describe a change in care, with a clear aim designed to make improvement to the quality of care.
• Demonstrate use of quality improvement methodologies with at least one completed PDSA cycle.
• Describe a fully completed audit cycle where a change has been made and evaluated.
• Describe the results of your change, whether successful or not.
• Single loop audits and surveys may very occasionally be accepted if they are on an issue which may generate some interesting learning and discussion.

To be accepted all abstracts must be written up using the Revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence Guidelines (SQUIRE 2.0) which are described below.

Any abstract which does not meet the above criteria will not meet minimum scoring and will be rejected.

Revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence Guidelines (SQUIRE 2.0)

• Title

Indicate that the abstract concerns a change initiative designed to improve healthcare (broadly defined to include clinical effectiveness, efficiency and value for money, patient centredness, patient safety, improved access to service).

Abstract

• Provide adequate information to aid in searching and indexing
• Summarise all key information from various sections of the text using the abstract format of the intended publication or a structured summary such as: background, local problem, methods, interventions, results, conclusions

Category 1

Define the relevant area of your work

• Clinical Effectiveness
• Efficiency and value for money
• Patient centredness
• Patient safety
• Improved access to service

Category 2

Define the relevant stage of your work

1. Innovation – test of a completely new idea
2. Adaptation – modifying existing good practice from one sector to another
3. Adoption - spread of known/ existing good practice

Background

• Describe the care sector, the community or department where your improvement work was done. • Describe the team involved in your work and the patient group or client group that is the focus of your improvement work.

Introduction (Why did you start)

• Clearly describe the local problem or system issue which you aim to improve.
• Clearly describe how that problem was affecting the care received by patients and families and how it impacted on those delivering the care.
• Describe the scale of the problem.
• Describe your specific improvement goal(s)

Methods (What did you do)

• Who did you engage in your improvement work
• How are you going to determine the impact of your improvement work, what are your measures and how are they being recorded
• What approach are you taking, what are your implementation plans Interventions
• Describe the changes to practice needed to address the identified problem
• Clearly describe what you did to make those changes and how you went about it, in sufficient detail so that others could do the same.

Results (What did you find)

• Describe the impact of your intervention(s).
• Describe how far this went to solve your problem.
• Describe the benefits to patient or client group.
• If this improvement work is still in progress describe what you plan to do next.

Conclusions (What does it mean)

• Describe your implementation lessons, what worked and what you would do differently next time.
• Describe the possible impact of these changes if your learning was transferred to others.
• How are you going to make sure that your local improvement "sticks".
• Could you offer support to others wanting to do the same thing.

Other information

• If your project required Ethics approval, please state if this has been obtained

No. There will be a stable link on the BGS site to cite your abstract/poster in the future. We also acknowledge to the lead submitting author the acceptance of the abstract, and following the successful presentation of the final poster or platform.

We will not issue certificates of presentation on top of the CPD attendance certificate.

Posters remain accessible in the posters.bgs.org.uk site and abstract books will be available to download.

We have discussed this with our Trainees Council committee and Education and Training Committee and have confirmed that this evidence is sufficient. If there are confirmed instances of this evidence not being accepted, please share with us so that we can demonstrate this and act upon it as require.

Congratulations on being accepted as a poster presenter. If you are successful in your submission you will be emailed full details about submitting your poster to present, registration steps and what to do in and around the conference. You may wish to read this page about preparing your abstract.

All presenters need to register and pay the relevant registration fee. There is no discount for being a poster or platform presenter on registration, however BGS members save at least 40% on the registration fee, as well as being able to apply for a grant to cover attendance - read more here. Membership for medical students, nursing and AHP students (in undergraduate UK courses), preceptorship year Nurse and AHPs and Foundation year doctors pay nothing for membership. You can join online via this link

We encourage submissions from those at the start of their career. This includes medical, nurse and AHP students as well as Foundation Year, IMT and Clinical Fellows.

Spring and Autumn National Conferences (3-Day conferences)
There are several cash prizes at the BGS Spring and Autumn national conferences awarded to the best platform and best posters. There are also prizes for work submitted by Nurses and AHPs ( the Eva Huggins Prize of £200.00) GPs in training (£200.00) and Doctoral Researchers ( The Richard Dodds Memorial prize, a framed certificate and the chance to present your work at a subsequent Autumn or Spring  BGS conference in the Research session.)

Special Interest Group conferences
At BGS Special Interest Group conferences there are prizes for the best platform presentation and best poster. The prize is a complimentary registration for a national BGS Spring or Autumn conference (equivalent to £180 - £270). This should be taken up within one year. You will be invited to present your work here in the poster presented elsewhere section:rizes

Devolved Nation Meetings and England Region Local Meetings
At BGS Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England Region meetings there are prizes for the best platform presentation and best poster. The prize is a complimentary registration for a national BGS Spring or Autumn conference (equivalent to £180 - £270). This should be taken up within one year. You will be invited to present your work here in the poster presented elsewhere section.

_{*Those at consultant level or equivalent are not eligible for prizes}