The military kick off Thursday's scientific sessions with news from the front line including state of the art research on blast injury, coagulopathy and massive trauma with considerable transferable messages for us generalists.

Not satisfied with confining ourselves to a single moment in time we are looking forward “On the horizon” with some leading European speakers and backwards at 21 years of NCEPOD, a year of check lists and a compilation of NPSA critical incidents.

On Friday attention will turn to the environment with a session including the environmental impact of the NHS and global warming. If that isn’t enough of the big picture then we branch out to mass participation running, Formula 1 and extreme mountaineering.

There are outstanding International speakers including Dr Mark Lema from New York who will speak on leadership in anaesthesia and the future of our specialty and two guest speakers selected by the European Society of Anaesthesiology. From the UK Professor Keith Willet will talk on Trauma Care in the UK.