An ordinary general meeting of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) was held on 14 January 2005. The main theme of the meeting was to promote modernisation and service innovation in sexual health and HIV services. The meeting was co-hosted by the BASHH Education and Clinical Governance committees.

In his keynote address, Dr Immy Ahmed-Jushuf emphasised that modernisation was not a new concept within the specialty—rather an evolving theme which has been evident over the past 20 years and he outlined some of the external as well as internal drivers for change. Sexual health services still face major challenges because of unprecedented demand, resulting in unacceptable waiting time for patients wishing to access the service at a time when there has been a significant increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STI) and HIV. Capacity for seeing new attendees in the service had increased by 36.5% between 1990 and 2002, and HIV workload has doubled between 1999 and 2002. There has been very little new investment in the service over the past …