Regional Specialty Professional Advisors (RSPAs)
The Royal College of Surgeons of England are piloting a new scheme to replace Regional Specialty Advisors with RSPAs. These will be the link between the Specialty Associations and the new College appointed post of Director of Professionl Affairs (DPAs) and include partnerships with the Schools of Surgery Deaneries and the Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs).
The aim of the new scheme is to provide a unified local and national voice for surgery in relation to service provision and professional issues through two way feedback from the regions to College Council and the Specialty Associations. More importantly, it should provide individual surgeons through the revalidation process.
For each region (based on SHA boundaries) there will be one Director of Professional Affairs with a committee made up of an RSPA for each SAC defined specialty.
BAPS RSPAs:
| Region | DPA | RSPA | Term of office |
| East Midlands | Professor Brian Rowlands | Mr Richard Stewart (Nottingham) | Nov 2009-2012 |
| East of England | Mr Surjait Singh | Mr Ashish Minocha (Norwich) | Feb 2011-2014 |
| London NE | Mr Michael Stearns | Professor Mark Davenport (London) | Dec 2010-2013 |
| London NW | Mr Jonathan Ramsay | " | |
| London S | Mr Bill Allum | " | |
| North East | Mr Richard Montgomery | Mr Gareth Hosie (Newcastle) | Dec 2010-2013 |
| North West | Mr David Jones & Mr Mike Zeiderman | Mr Rick Turnock (Liverpool) | Nov 2009-2012 |
| South Central | Miss Anne Stebbing | Miss Rowena Hitchcock (Oxford) | Nov 2009-2012 |
| South East Coast | Mr Andrew Cobb | Professor Mark Davenport | As above |
| South West | Professor Paul Abrams | Miss Eleri Cusick (Bristol) | Sept 2008-2011 |
| West Midlands | Mr Stan Silverman | Mr Dakshesh Parikh (Birmingham) | Aug 2008-2011 |
| Yorkshire | Mr Jon Ausobsky | Mr Julian Roberts (Sheffield) | Feb 2011-2014 |
| Wales | Mr Colin Ferguson | Mr Simon Huddart (Cardiff) | Nov 2009-2012 |
| Northern Ireland | Mr Terry Irwin | Vacant |