President's Message
Dr Trevor Smith, BAPEN President
Happy New Year to In Touch readers and welcome to the 100th issue! I know in reality it hasn’t been the happiest start to a new year, we’ve already had a difficult few weeks. But I hope everyone is keeping safe and well and looking after yourselves, your colleagues and your families. Life for BAPEN remains busy as always and I wanted to give you a round-up of news and recent events, and a look forward to the year ahead.
Conference
It was in the middle of last year that we made the decision to cancel our Annual Conference and move to an online format. There was a certain amount of trepidation – conference is always a particularly enjoyable event in the BAPEN calendar and it was hard to imagine how we would capture any of that spirit with a virtual format. However, I am delighted to report that we enjoyed great success. We hosted ten fantastic evening webinars, including a number of sessions examining the impact of COVID-19 response.
I think there was a really nice balance to the programme and I would like to thank our Programmes Committee for the work they put in to achieve this. We had a brilliant roster of speakers, and the format worked well, with a chat functionality enabling questions to be asked interactively. We were delighted that so many of you dialled in and, indeed, with how many non-members joined us too. A particular benefit of the virtual conference is that the webinars are still available to watch on demand for anyone who may have missed one. So, if you haven’t yet seen them all head to our website to have a look. Please also think about alerting your colleagues to them, as even if they are non-members they are a good return on a small investment! On that note, please don’t forget to mark our 2021 Annual Conference dates in your diary, which will be 30th November-1st December. Fingers crossed we will be able to welcome you in person to the Hilton Brighton Metropole!
During conference we also had our AGM, and it was great to see such a strong turnout from our members. It was excellent to be able to welcome our new Trustees at the AGM. Our new team has a wealth of experience across the nutrition and charity sector and we are really looking forward to putting their skills and expertise to good use! You can find out more about these appointments here.
COVID Service Improvement and Innovation winners
I would like to congratulate our 2020 COVID-19 Service Improvement and Innovation award winners. We created these awards in recognition of the fantastic work being done all around the country to adapt and innovate within services to provide the best support to patients. The awards were open to nominations from within the acute and community sectors, and we received some brilliant entries. Our joint winners were University Hospitals of Leicester and NHS Surrey Heartlands CCG & Royal Surrey Hospital, both of whom submitted fantastic entries. The former detailed how they innovatively preserved PPE as the Adult Intensive Care Unit experienced high numbers of COVID-19 patients. The latter implemented a post-hospital discharge early intervention clinic (EIC) to improve patient outcomes via inter-organisational practice. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate some of the best examples of ingenuity from within the world of nutrition. You can read more about these inspiring responses to the pandemic as well as other truly commendable entries on our website.
Aerosol Generating Procedures Alliance
In the spirit of working together to make our voice louder, you may recall that in the past months BAPEN, in partnership with other professional organisations and trade unions, has been campaigning for enhanced Personal Protective Equipment for a range of procedures which we believe ought to be classified as aerosol generating. Despite many setbacks we continue to campaign on this issue and indeed the wider call for adequate protection for all healthcare professionals. I would like to offer my thanks to Dr Barry Jones of our Independent Advisory Committee, who Chairs the AGP Alliance and has been at the forefront of this campaign, working tirelessly to highlight risks to patients and professionals and to suggest constructive solutions. The issue has received welcome attention in the media, with articles quoting Dr Barry Jones: “it's the air we share that's killing us”.
On a related note, at the start of the year, Fresh Air NHS, a group of frontline healthcare workers and supporters who recognise the importance of airborne SARS Co-V 2, wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson. The letter called on the UK government and the devolved administrations to improve ventilation of care settings and to upgrade respiratory PPE. The AGP Alliance have since also written to Matt Hancock, calling on him to personally intervene to ensure that all healthcare professionals have access to FFP3 PPE when working with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients.
These issues are important. Healthcare professionals are being put at risk and that in turn is affecting their families and loved ones and of course, the patients they treat and those around them. It is also affecting services, with absence and illness likely to have a catastrophic impact on treatment of people with COVID-19 and with other issues that require intervention. It is deeply frustrating that professional voices are not being listened to and I can assure you we will continue to do all we can.
Please see the Nasogastric Tube Special Interest Group (NGSIG) report in this issue for further details and updates on the AGP, the AGP Alliance and Fresh Air NHS.
The year ahead
On a more positive note, we can look forward to a good year ahead. I’ve already mentioned conference, but there will of course also be UK Malnutrition Awareness Week.
We will continue to bring you news from us and from the wider nutrition community through our website and on our social media channels. Please do follow us if you don’t already and make sure you encourage your colleagues to do the same. We have enjoyed fantastic growth over recent years, and I want that to continue. The more interested professionals of all disciplines that we can bring into our community, the better our voice will be heard and the more likely we are to be successful in encouraging wider prioritisation of nutrition.
Thank you all once again for your tremendous efforts over this most challenging of winter periods. As ever, it is my absolute pleasure to be part of a community of such dedicated individuals who go above and beyond for the wellbeing of their patients.
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