BTS has been committed to improving the care and treatment for people with Tuberculosis (TB) for many years. This new website continues the tradition of providing those involved in the treatment of people suffering with TB with the tools for the job. We hope it will become an invaluable bookmark on your desk-top and that in these pages you will find much that is relevant. The information will be regularly updated, reflecting all areas of the Society's activity in TB. The site will be of assistance to those who see little TB in day-to-day practice as well as to those who have a heavier TB workload and those who deal with difficult and complex cases. There is also a forum to enable you to contribute your comments and experience of TB in your locality and to seek advice.
The Society's involvement in improving standards of care in Tuberculosis has a venerable history. The Joint TB Committee (JTC) was a major committee of the British Tuberculosis Association from as far back as 1946. The BTA subsequently became the British Thoracic and Tuberculosis Association (BTTA) and then the British Thoracic Association (BTA) prior to its merger with the Thoracic Society when the British Thoracic Society was formed in 1982. The JTC constitution can be found here.
Following a review of its structure and functions in 2007/8, BTS established a network of Specialist Advisory Groups (SAGs). This was done in order to better represent the various sub-specialist interests within the specialty, and especially to ensure that the means existed to provide timely expert advice and opinion to external organisations and to BTS members and others in respect of clinical treatment. In this way the TB SAG has become the way in which the Society achieves ongoing operational change.
The JTC will continue to:-
- co-ordinate specialist expert opinion (including public health advice) across the United Kingdom in those matters which require national attention and action, by bringing together specialist medical opinion, including microbiology and pathology opinion, public health advice, epidemiological information, and national government policy advisers;
- act as a source of advice on tuberculosis to healthcare professionals, hospital trusts, and other organisations and individuals throughout the United Kingdom on those issues which require expert opinion over and above that which can be given via the BTS TB Specialist Advisory Group and associated national clinical advice networks.
TB - Latest News
Tuberculosis Guidelines
TB - Education
Management of TB Services
Commissioning (This is a pdf file to download)
BTS Specialist Advisory Group
TB Links