Surveys are a useful means of gathering information. Factual information and knowledge base should be accessible by other means, and BESS surveys should only be used to supplement that or to survey the membership’s perceptions/attitudes/opinions on the management of certain conditions. Other forms of surveys that would be highly topical and relevant to the needs of patients and/or the NHS would also be appropriate.
Surveys are often conducted to inform future research design, more specifically to aid in grant applications for specific areas of clinical research. Surveys designed for this specific purpose will be encouraged, as it will help promote BESS as a research network.
The topic of the survey should be as specific as possible, and the questionnaire designed appropriately to extract the information required on the topic. The questions should be unambiguous and consistently easy to understand. Using clinical scenario-based questions tends to elicit better response rates.
Please find further guidance and the application form below.
Criteria
Eligibility criteria for the applicant
Applicants eligible for consideration include Shoulder and Elbow consultants, as well as orthopaedic trainee researchers supported by either a Shoulder and Elbow Consultant or an Allied Health Professional. The survey wording must be submitted as part of the application.
Eligibility criteria for selection
Surveys are selected at each committee meeting. Survey proposals should centre on clinical research related to shoulder and elbow disorders. The Research Committee will assess all survey submissions. Applicants should inform the BESS office when the survey is complete and published/analysed.
Application and Guidance
Instructions to authors
Requests for circulation of surveys to BESS members should be submitted covering the following aspects:
- Purpose of the survey, and its potential benefit to the membership
- Relevance of the survey topic to the needs of patients and/or the NHS
- Justification that the survey is necessary to answer the question/s posed, i.e., such information is not available by other means
- Confirmation of how the results of the survey will be utilised
- Plans for dissemination of survey results.
You must submit the wording for the questionnaire to accompany the proposal.
BESS will retain ownership of data from surveys of its members. By submitting your survey to BESS, you agree to provide the Research Committee with a summary of your findings.
These summarised survey results will be archived on the BESS web pages to allow access to other researchers.
BESS will limit the number of surveys to a maximum of four per year. Only well-constructed surveys which adhere to the above principles will be selected for circulation to the membership. The Research Committee will provide this quality assurance by objectively assessing the surveys submitted to BESS.
Appropriately constructed surveys following the above guidelines should be submitted using the form below.
The Survey Proposal form will be open for submission throughout the year. Proposals submitted up until two weeks prior to the date of the Committee meeting will be considered at that meeting. If your proposal is submitted after the meeting date it will be considered at the next Committee meeting. Please see the dates below for more details.
Next Committee meeting: 8 December 2025
Applications for survey proposals received up until Monday, 1 December 2025 will be considered at this meeting for circulation to the membership.
Questions can be submitted to the Research Committee via research@bess.ac.uk.
The closing date for submissions in this period is:
09.00, Monday, 1 September 2025
FORM NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS
Please login to your BESS account to complete this form.
The BESS privacy notice is located here. Please ensure you read this before submitting your survey.
Past Surveys
| Year | Name | Survey Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Toby Baring | The N-Brace Trial |
| 2017 | Andy Carr | A survey of current practice and opinions on using patches to enhance rotator cuff surgery |
| 2017 | Tariq Kwaees | Humeral Shaft Fracture Survey |
| 2017 | Jayanti Rai | Return to work following arthroscopic supraspinatus repair: Survey of current UK practice |
| 2018 | Harvinder Singh | The management of displaced fractures of the shaft of humerus |
| 2019 | Rachael Daw | Survey of Current practice in shoulder and elbow arthroplasty patient review |
| 2019 | Elena Karasouli | Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (rTSA) verses Anatomic Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (aTSA) |
| 2019 | Harvinder Singh | The development of the treatment arms in a national trial on the management of displaced fractures of the distal clavicle |
| 2020 | Steve Gwilym | Distal Biceps survey |
| 2020 | Kapil Kumar | Survey of use of Superior Capsular Reconstruction for management of irreparable rotator cuff tear |
| 2020 | Helen Thompson | The hydrodilatation expert Delphi survey (HD X Delphi survey) |
| 2021 | Aziz Haque | Radial head fractures |
| 2021 | Chris Littlewood | Which factors influence clinical equipoise across surgical members of the British Elbow and Shoulder Society in relation to rehabilitation following rotator cuff repair? |
| 2021 | Radhakant Pandey | Neglected shoulder dislocation survey |
| 2022 | Eleanor Burden | Physical Restrictions following Total Elbow Arthroplasty |
| 2022 | Addie Majed | The Management of Distal Humeral Fractures |
| 2023 | Lindsay Cunningham | New implants in Shoulder and Elbow Surgery: a survey of current perspectives |
| 2023 | Zaid Hamoodi | The predictors of failure in total elbow arthroplasty |
| 2023 | Maciej Simon | Elective Shoulder Replacement Surgery – perioperative routines and management across countries |
| 2024 | Gev Bhabra | First time shoulder dislocation survey |
| 2024 | Hussam Elamin | Variance in the management of fractures of the proximal humeral diaphysis in older adults: a survey to inform construction of a multinational service evaluation and trial of optimal care |
| 2024 | Akhilesh Pradhan | A survey assessing the variability in reverse shoulder replacement surgery: A study of UK based shoulder surgeons |