News Round-up

International Acclaim for Leading Gluten Expert

Professor David Sanders is the first person in the UK since 2005 to win the prestigious Benjt Ihre Medal for groundbreaking work into gluten-related problems.

Professor David Sanders, Consultant Gastroenterologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Sheffield, has been awarded the prestigious Bengt Ihre Medal from the Swedish Society of Gastroenterology.

Professor David Sanders has played a pivotal role in helping advance understanding of the impact of gluten on lifestyles and health. Based at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Gastrointestinal Unit, his landmark research has benchmarked the prevalence of coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity within the UK and demonstrated that patients presenting with irritable bowel syndrome could have previously undetected coeliac disease. The Sheffield unit has pioneered diagnosis and new treatments that has resulted in The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline recommendations for these patients. It also looks after the largest population of coeliac disease patients in the UK.

Together with his colleague Professor Marios Hadjivassiliou, also from the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, he established the Sheffield Institute of Gluten-Related Disorders (SIGReD) in 2013. This world-leading centre brings together some of the most distinguished researchers and academics and aims to increase recognition of symptoms of coeliac disease not always connected to the bowel.

He is also the chair of Coeliac UK’s Health Advisory Council.

Professor David Sanders said: “For a Society to pick out your work from thousands across the globe is a real honour, and great peer recognition of the groundbreaking work being led from our Sheffield unit, which is arguably the foremost unit of its kind in the country. This is absolutely wonderful news and I am delighted to have received this prestigious award. I will cherish it and it reflects all the support I have received from patients and colleagues over the years.”

The Benjt Ihre Medal was presented to Professor David Sanders at the recent annual scientific meeting of the Swedish Society of Gastroenterology in June. Here he addressed an audience of 1,000 medics, surgeons and nurses working in the field as the 2017 Benjt Ihre honorary lecturer, highlighting recent advances in coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity research.

National Enteral Feeds Advisory Group (NEFAG) Published Updated Best Practice Guide to Procurement of Services

Many Dietitians and Nutrition Nurses will be involved at some point in their working lives in the processes for tendering for nutrition supply services for tube fed patients, and will be asked to lead on the clinical aspects of this such as developing the service specification and clinical pathways needed. Tendering for nutrition supply services is a time consuming, complex and significant undertaking and needs collaboration from a wide range and diversity of stakeholders. Clinicians, procurement and contract teams will welcome news that guidance on best practice for these processes has recently been updated.

The NHS in England currently has approximately 45,000 home patients being supported on enteral feeding. The feed market is worth around £353.5million per annum and a further 10% of patients receive feed products via the non prescription route. In March this year the National Enteral Feeds Advisory Group (NEFAG) published an update to the procurement guidance for these services entitled ‘Best practice for the provision of nutrition supply services including feeds, pumps, consumables, home delivery and associated support services.’

NEFAG was convened in 2000 by the Commercial Medicines Unit, (formerly the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency - NHS PASA) and consists of Dietitians, Nutrition Nurses, Medicines Management Leads and Procurement Leads who are actively involved in enteral feeding and have experience of the tender process. NEFAG is supported by the British Specialist Nutrition Association (BSNA) Ltd whose members include the 3 main suppliers Abbott Nutrition, Fresenius Kabi, and Nutricia Advanced Medical Nutrition as well as Mead Johnson Nutrition, Nestle Health Science and Nualtra. NEFAG’s first procurement guide was published in 2005. Then working with BSNA this Guide was reviewed in 2014, with the current Best Practice document published in March 2017.

The purpose of the document is to support procurement groups and clinicians throughout the tendering process. This will start with preparation prior to the OJEU notice being placed, move through to the active tender process and then to award of the contract, implementation of transfer of services and contract management. The document outlines twelve key steps for a successful tender process with ‘Golden Rules’ at each step to encourage best practice throughout. It is the intention that the document is adhered to in its entirety as not doing so can have serious financial consequences and even result in not all suppliers bidding for the contract.

As well as updates to the legislation since 2014, the landscape of procurement for these services has changed considerably since the previous guide. Recent hot topics, potential pitfalls and how to avoid them are discussed. These include the growth in use of framework agreements and requests for suppliers to fund NHS posts within the tender. The importance of understanding and agreeing the financial model is stressed, and the section on off-prescription services has been expanded to provide more information on this option with pros and cons. Throughout, there is an emphasis on working collaboratively with bidders during the process, including sharing draft service specifications and usage data prior to publication of the OJEU notice. The importance of patient participation and involvement is also stressed.

The document can be viewed online here.

 

The Summer Issue of The Pathway Newsletter is Live

The summer issue of The Pathway Newsletter – Making Malnutrition Matter – is available now with news about new tools, guidance and reports.

Download here.

 

NCEPOD – Call for study proposals 2017

NCEPOD is inviting organisations to submit original study proposals which will be considered as possible forthcoming studies. Study proposals should be relevant to the current clinical environment and, very importantly, should have the potential to contribute original work to the subject.

For more information visit: www.ncepod.org.uk/topic2.php.

 

BIFA have Produced a Draft Position Statement on HPN in Advanced Malignancy

Comments are welcome on the draft statement and should be emailed to: secretary@bapen.org.uk by 30th September 2017.

To view the Draft Position Statement on HPN in Advanced Malignancy click here.

 

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