BAPEN News
BAPEN is on INSTA!
Eliana Martin, former BAPEN Intern
In alignment with BAPEN’s new strategy for 2022-2027, BAPEN has been making great efforts to try and improve engagement with a broader and more diverse audience. Social media is continuously expanding, gaining a more extensive reach each day. Therefore, effectively utilising a wide range of social media platforms is essential to successfully implement BAPEN’s new strategy.
Considering this, in September of 2022, I was given the opportunity to work with a group of student dietitians for BAPEN to create an Instagram page targeting students who were pre-registered healthcare professionals. At this time, BAPEN did not have any official Instagram accounts. Therefore, in this project, we were tasked with investigating the feasibility, long-term potential, and whether a need for such a page existed. The results from this project would indicate whether it would be beneficial for BAPEN to continue to expand its presence on Instagram by creating an additional page targeting all existing and new potential members (registered-health care workers).
We created the @BAPEN_PreReg Instagram page, and shortly after this, we started posting a mixture of reels, stories, main grid posts, and one live video to introduce BAPEN, the four main pillars of malnutrition that BAPEN follows, and how it would target pre-registered HCPs. Within the first six weeks of creating the page, it had 174 followers and had reached 4913 Instagram accounts.
As a result of the success of our project and BAPEN_PreReg, we were invited to attend the annual BAPEN conference last November to share with our followers the fantastic people that work with this organization. The page continued to grow, and as of January this year, a new cohort of students took over running the Instagram page, and it now has over 400 followers!
As of July 3rd, BAPEN has created an official Instagram page for its members, @BAPEN.UK, which already has more than 190 followers. This page allows all members of BAPEN to be kept up to date with important information, such as conference dates and the deadlines for abstract submissions. It also provides a fun and interactive way for all members to be connected by liking, sharing, and engaging with the posts on the page.
Feel free to give @BAPEN.UK a follow to be involved in BAPEN as it continues to grow and evolve!
Update on the Covid Airborne Protection Alliance (CAPA)
Our thanks as always go to Dr Barry Jones, Chair of CAPA/CATA (Covid Airborne Transmission Alliance) and long standing member of Bapen Exec and Council. He is deeply involved in providing evidence to the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry, which is examining the UK response to, and impact of, the Covid-19 pandemic and learn lessons for the future.
There are 4 modules as part of the inquiry:
- Module 1: Resilience and Preparedness
- Module 2: Core UK decision making and political governance
- Module 3: Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on healthcare
- Module 4: Vaccines and therapeutics.
Module 1 hearings on the preparedness for a pandemic are drawing to a close at the time of writing (July 2023). Our witness statement to this module has been circulated to all core participants and was acclaimed by one of their lawyers on the first day of public hearings. Once it has been published by the Inquiry, BAPEN members will be able to read it.
So far, we are not involved in Module 2 which deals with government decision making but this may change.
CATA is a core participant in Module 3 and has also submitted a witness statement by invitation. This is a powerful document which describes the experience of CATA member organisations and individuals including BAPEN and NNNG. As our name suggests, it deals predominantly with the failure to recognise the airborne route of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and its obligatory respiratory protective equipment and the need for better ventilation. We are also representing the issue of poor collection of data on healthcare worker Covid infections leading to long Covid or death. Again, the full statement cannot be made available to BAPEN members until the Public Inquiry permits it.
As for ongoing IPC guidance, this is now embodied in the 4 National IPC manuals. These differ in their interpretation of the science so that the Scottish version still adheres to the droplet route of transmission (for which there is still no evidence) and surgical masks for all except AGPs (Aerosol Generating Procedures). Risk assessments where advised are difficult to perform satisfactorily as the underlying risk is so poorly defined in the manuals. The English version goes some way to admitting the airborne route but gives conflicting guidance on when to wear FFP3 masks or equivalent.
We hope that our continuing efforts will bring some sense of consistency to those responsible for the IPC guidance and that the Public Inquiry will recommend changes which will prevent such misunderstandings and misinformation from impacting future pandemics.
More information on the inquiry can be found: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/
Wendy-Ling Relph
Chair: Bapen NG SIG
Top Tips to Help Prepare Your Abstract
The purpose of a conference abstract is to summarise the main points of your research, audit or service evaluation. The content needs to convince the conference organisers that you have something important and valuable to add to the conference. It therefore needs to be focused and clear in explaining your topic and the main points of research that are relevant to the audience who will be attending.
Abstracts for conferences are fairly formulaic and although the sections may not have the same or include specific headings the formula tends to be: topic area + title + motivation + problem statement + approach + results + conclusions = conference abstract
Follow the conference abstract guidelines carefully - if you don't your abstract will automatically be rejected.
Double-check the conference guidelines for abstract style and spacing, the online process is intended to help this. Pay attention to the formatting guidelines.
Find further information on how to write your abstract content here.
BPNG’s Webinars
As mentioned in the recent BAPEN Council meeting the BPNG are hosting a series of excellent webinars. These one-hour sessions provide expert insight into a range of topics. Click here to access past webinars and look out for future editions: http://bit.ly/3r5iBRG.
BAPEN Website Survey
BAPEN is in the process of updating its website to make it more user-friendly, engaging, and reflective of the organisation's ambitions within its recently published five-year strategy.
We'd like to engage with as many members and non-members as possible during the research stage of this project to ensure we are listening to, and responding to, the views and opinions of the people who frequent our website.
The survey only takes around 5 minutes to complete, and can be found here. Thank you in advance!
BAPEN Conference 2023:
Save the Date!
Date: 28th & 29th November 2023
Venue: Edinburgh International Conference Centre
Website: www.bapen.org.uk/resources-and-education/meetings/annual-conference
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