The BOSTU Executive Board would like to promote the new five-year BIOS strategy (2023-2028) that was launched in June 2023.

The strategy was introduced by our new Chair, Craig Murray, who took over at the AGM on Thursday 22nd June 2023. The new strategy lays out the profession’s key priorities for delivering on the vision of producing a “sustainable, thriving and visible profession dedicated to the improvement of the eye health of the population”. The strategy was developed with feedback from stakeholders across the profession and will form the basis of BIOS Council’s work under Craig’s leadership from 2023-2028.

The strategy identifies four key themes. These are: to develop BIOS’s operational resilience; to lead the development of the profession; to improve visibility, recruitment, and retention; and to lead innovation within the profession. There is a specific focus on working towards independent prescribing, ensuring a coherent definition of core orthotic practice, and actively supporting a diversity of routes into the profession. There remains a continuing focus on growing our membership and promoting greater recruitment into the profession. The themes are underpinned by a commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion, reducing health inequality, and environmental sustainability.

The BOSTU Executive Board supports the vision, themes, and foundations of the BIOS strategy. As a board, we are dedicated to serving the best interests of our members, protecting their rights, and improving their quality of life by negotiating with employers and the government. More specifically, we aim to:

• Grow the membership of BIOS and BOSTU – we will do this by promoting the professional body and trade union, and the benefits that membership holds. You can only receive the benefits of BOSTU representation if you are a member of BIOS, so it is important to have an active membership as you never know when you may need support.
• Actively developing TU leaders from within the orthoptic profession – we will do this by providing opportunities (for example, shadowing and training) to our active TU representatives, and by providing development opportunities for early career orthoptists to gain knowledge and experience of trade union matters.
• Develop TU representatives with appropriate training and support – we will do this by continuing to offer TU training. We have previously offered training on mental health, equality, diversity, professionalism, and job matching. We also have upcoming training planned on representing members in various situations. This will offer TU representatives the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience, to better help them support the members they represent. We are always interested to hear what specific training our reps want, so if you have ideas, please let us know by emailing us. Our representatives also have the opportunity to undertake training with Union Learn and TUC. Visit the websites www.unionlearn.org.uk and www.tuceducation.org.uk for more details.
• Continue to develop transparent BOSTU governance structures – we recently published our governance and structure documents on the BIOS website. This includes the structure of the executive board, the rule book, and the complaints and appeal procedure and forms. These can be found on the trade union page (https://www.orthoptics.org.uk/trade-union/).
• Actively represent BOSTU at a national level – we are a very active union with membership to the NHS staff side council, and NHS TU leads, and we are affiliated with the TUC. As part of this, we regularly attend meetings and conferences to respond to current issues and lobby for improved conditions of employment for all.
• Commitment to provide strong representation for members through BOSTU – we will do this by ensuring our members know how and when to contact representatives, and by actively developing TU representatives and leaders from within the profession.

If you have any questions or concerns, or are interested in becoming a member of the executive board, please contact us by emailing any member of the team.

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