From the President: "Tidings of comfort and joy!"

Freezing, on the platform at Plymouth station yesterday evening, I heard that familiar refrain of the Christmas carol sending tidings of "comfort and joy" from the adjacent church hall. After an amazingly vibrant and energising two days in Truro and Plymouth visiting their surgeons I really felt the reality of those words.

Despite phenomenal pressures of increasing emergency admissions, daily wrangling to admit both cancer and elective patients and real financial pressures the surgeons in both The Royal Cornwall Hospitals and Derriford Hospitals find the time to deliver excellent patient care, high quality surgery and training, developments in research and   other altruistic efforts.

They have changed, developed and strengthened their services, innovated and enhanced the offering for their patients and engaged in the leadership challenges all too well known to those in the acute sector. This is not now just about surgery. It's about forming coalitions to ensure the surgical patients are not subject to the vagaries of commissioning restrictions purely for financial motives.  They work hard to ensure that outpatients continue to be treated with the highest quality of up to date surgical care. As they develop the wider surgical teams to support their efforts we celebrate the skills and enthusiasm of all those they work with and look forward to enhancing and continuing those productive and innovative relationships.

Well done the Devon and Cornwall surgeons.

Happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year

Follow Miss Clare Marx, President, Royal College of Surgeons on Twitter: @ClareMarx