Next week I’ll be among some five hundred doctors joining with colleagues from across the UK for the BMA’s Annual Representatives Meeting.

OK, so it’s not exactly the G8, but the policies formed by BMA members at the ARM do have a real impact on the agenda over the coming year. At last year’s conference, we launched the Look After Our NHS campaign, which has proved popular with the public, and raised political awareness of doctors’ frustrations with the market reforms of the past decade.

Also since last year, the Darzi reforms to the NHS in London have been abandoned; a commitment has been made to provide greater protection for NHS whistle-blowers, the Summary Care Record is to be reviewed, and the GMC has been told to shelve its plans for revalidation for another year.

Clearly such developments owe more to the election of a new government than to anything else, but the BMA has lobbied on all of them, and the formation of policies at the ARM is the start of this process. The debates between doctors next week will determine the BMA’s priorities over the course of the year, put issues on the map, and act as a focus for media coverage, as well as providing a forum for grass roots doctors to have their voices heard.

Issues on the agenda this year include the workforce planning challenges ahead of us, care for refused asylum seekers, and proposals to reform libel laws to protect freedom of speech in science and research. And as ever there’ll be a lively consideration of the state of the NHS.

We’re also going to be trying a couple of new things. New health secretary Andrew Lansley will be addressing a special session on Wednesday morning and taking questions from doctors. We don’t usually invite politicians and we’ll be asking representatives whether they want to see more of this at future meetings, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets.

We’ll also be running a trial session on the second day, featuring parallel sessions on doctors with disabilities; the quality and productivity agenda; and the likely impact of the emergency budget. These will be followed by a head-to-head debate on market forces in the NHS.

Plenty of reps at the ARM are people who were previously cynical about medical politics but decided to get involved - not because they wanted to be part of the ‘medical establishment’ but because they wanted to change things. And if you don’t agree with the policies they make next week, I’d strongly urge you to come along next year.

Read more about the ARM.