Meet Your New BAPEN President
At the end of November 2023, at the annual BAPEN Conference, Dr Trevor Smith stood down as BAPEN President and we were delighted to welcome Dr Nick Thompson into the role. Here we meet our new BAPEN President and find out what his focus will be during his tenure.
How long have you been practicing in gastroenterology, what led you to this field & what are your areas of speciality?
I chose gastroenterology as my first house job in medicine. I was working for a very supportive gastroenterologist who seemed a good doctor and who liked his job. As a speciality you help care for a mixture of patients with acute and chronic health problems, we have some effective treatments (proton pump inhibitors were just being used) and there is a mixture of clinics, ward work and endoscopy – so, there is a practical aspect.
I started training in gastrointestinal (GI) in 1991, as a registrar at the Royal Free Hospital in London where I spent 5 years, including a year at the North Middlesex Hospital. I then came up to Newcastle as a Senior Registrar on a very snowy January in 1996. Originally, my speciality was in the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and I completed an MD on childhood risk factors for IBD. I was appointed as a consultant in 1998, and was asked to take a lead on the nutritional side of things – when I asked what that meant I was told it was about placing percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tubes! We looked after our first home parenteral nutrition (HPN) patient in about 2000, and the cohort of patients has grown from there to now over 150 patients.
Thinking about your career & achievements so far, what would you say are your key highlights?
Seeing the service grow slowly has been the ‘slow-burn’ highlight. In the first few years, I was ‘mentored’ by Barbara Davidson, a fantastic and very knowledgeable dietitian. Derek Manas, one of the busy Liver and Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary (HPB) Surgeons, was enthusiastic about developing the service and we started a weekly Nutrition Multidisciplinary Team (MDT). We appointed our first nutrition nurse specialist after a year or two, but she had to cover both enteral and parenteral patients and we then appointed our first dedicated HPN nurse and dietitian. We now have 4 dietitians, 2 surgeons and 4 nurse specialists in the Intestinal Failure (IF) Team, as well as one IF pharmacist (yes, just one – we need more but Katie Bell is a star). We appointed a part-time clinical psychologist, Sue Brown, to the team 2 years ago and quickly realised our patients and the team need more support on that front. Chris Mountford began almost 10 years ago and has taken our service forward hugely and is well known to BAPEN as a previous Treasurer. Two years ago, Suzi Batchelor joined as a third nutritional gastroenterologist and she has helped develop the team, bringing new skills and enthusiasm.
In 2004, we held a meeting in the upstairs of a pub in Durham (sounds a bit sleazy but it was an upmarket old coaching inn!) to see if we should start a nutrition network – there was great enthusiasm, and the Northern Nutrition Network began. We meet every 6 months at the Chester-le-Street cricket ground (rather than the pub!). In 2012, the Network was a co-winner of the Shire Award for Gastrointestinal Excellence (awarded at the British Society of Gastroenterology [BSG] conference) and this was a great moment to celebrate with colleagues from around the region, like Chris Wells from North Tees and Emma Johns from Gateshead – celebrations were led by Lisa Gemmell (PENG PN Lead) as I remember!? Another great moment was Hayley Leyland being awarded BSG Nurse of the Year in 2019 – she was very embarrassed to go on stage but a great moment of recognition for someone who I had worked with as ward sister and nutrition nurse specialist!
What most excites about taking on the role of BAPEN President?
Trying to help the organisation and charity to continue to grow and develop – working with other senior members of BAPEN. I am very aware of how well Trevor Smith led BAPEN as President, he seems a great model of being thoughtful and inclusive but also decisive. The success of the last 5 years is also down to Dan Rogers as Secretary – they made a great double act, and I am looking forward to working with Dan, as well as Charlotte Rutter, the incoming Secretary, along with other members of the Exec team such as Sheldon Cooper, Jane Fletcher, Emily Walters, Sarah-Jane Nelson, Emma Parsons and Kate Hall. Like the best MDTs, everyone brings different skills and perspectives to produce solutions to whatever issue is being discussed. I should also mention the Trustees, especially Phil Lyons and Roger Phillips, who give time, thoughtfulness and experience to particularly knotty problems for the charity.
As BAPEN President, what will be your main focuses during your tenure?
I have found the 5-year strategy document a really helpful way of thinking about the future, in terms of Knowledge, Reach and Sustainability. There are a couple of specific things that I would like to help develop over the next 2 or 3 years…
How can we help, in a practical way, nutrition MDTs in hospitals across the UK who are struggling in some way? If we can do that then we will be fulfilling our aim of ensuring individuals receive safe, timely and appropriate nutritional care in every setting and every day. We are looking to re-start a 3-day residential course (it used to be held in Grasmere many years ago) for 5 or 6 teams with the course fully funded by BAPEN, apart from accommodation. We hope to start this in the spring of next year – if you think your hospital might benefit from being involved, please let me know (Nick.Thompson@nhs.net – until I get a BAPEN email!).
Another plan, thinking of reach and sustainability, is developing nutrition networks across the UK. There are areas where these are very well developed, however, where they aren’t then how can we help? In those areas there will be fantastic, skilled and enthusiastic colleagues and perhaps we can help in co-ordinating activity and bringing people together? Our regional BAPEN reps will be crucial in helping with this and guiding how we can help. Again, if you have any ideas about this, please let me know.
Outside of your Consultant Gastroenterology position in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, what other things are you involved in, both on a professional and personal level?
Work inevitably takes up a lot of time, but I am reducing work to 3 days a week from the spring and, hopefully, this will allow more time for walking Tessie, our elderly but still quite sprightly greyhound (an ideal pet if you ever think of getting a dog, as long as you don’t mind them constantly trying to lie of your sofa – greyhoundtrust.org.uk). I play an eccentric game called real tennis; this is the original racquet sport played since medieval times indoors with balls like lawn tennis but heavier, wooden racquets, there is a sloping roof around 3 walls as well as a buttress on the other! Look at www.tennisandrackets.com if you want to know more!
Finally, this year I wanted to mark being 60 with a challenge and, so, I am planning to go on a long walk called the Via Francigena. It’s an old pilgrim route – although, I should admit to not being particularly religious – it runs from Canterbury to Rome and I persuaded my wife Ruth and friends Simon and Rosie to do this together. We are going to walk in 2 sections each for 2 months, the first from mid-April will end in Lausanne in Switzerland and then in September and October we just have to cross the Alps and head down to Rome! We are raising money for PINNT and clinical nutrition research in Newcastle (led by Colette Kirk). I will circulate details of a Just Giving page later. If anyone would like to join us for a few days then please let me know – Clare Donnellan from Leeds is the only volunteer so far for the hilly bits in Switzerland! If it is any reassurance, there is no camping!