Annual Pituitary CPC: now in its tenth year!

Dear Colleague

Meeting: Tenth National Pituitary Clinico-pathological Conference
Date: Thursday 6th March 2008 (all day).
Venue: Royal College of Physicians, London

Many will be aware of this great event, the annual Pituitary Clinico-pathological Conference - now in its tenth year. It has proved very popular and successful each year, as it gives a unique opportunity to discuss the management of cases of pituitary disease at a national
level and in a multi-disciplinary setting.

Participants come from all specialties involved in the management of pituitary disease, including adult and paediatric endocrinology,
neuroradiology, neurosurgery, neuropathology and radiotherapy. The cases discussed typically represent those situations when the clinical management decisions are not straight-forward. Some cases are interesting because they are unusual, but many cases presented are of the more common forms of pituitary disease, where there are still practical challenges in delivering optimal treatment.

I know that many colleagues really value this opportunity to keep up to date in pituitary disease - recognising that for many clinicians it is a small but important part of clinical practice. The preliminary announcement for the meeting is attached. Now is a good time to mark
the date in your diary, and clear clinical commitments so that you can join us. Why not bring a case to discuss? I'm sure this will be
another very successful pituitary meeting, and look forward to seeing you there.

Best wishes


James Ahlquist PhD FRCP
Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist
Southend Hospital Westcliff on Sea
Essex SS0 0RY
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For further information or to register for the meeting:
Tel: 01438 751519
Fax: 01438 751520
Email: ali@cfsevents.co.uk
Website: www.cfsevents.co.uk

SPARROWS 2008 applications

Dear Colleagues,

I have appended the application form for SPARROWS 2008 (attending the ADA APC) (Editor's note: please check your emails for the application form). Please note the deadline of 5pm 17th December, which must be adhered to. It is essential that you discuss your application with your current Educational Supervisor before submitting. Myself and Jean MacLeod look forward to judging the applications.

Regards,
Shaz.

Dr Shaz Wahid FRCP
Consultant Diabetologist/Endocrinologist
South Tyneside District Hospital

NRDSAG Minutes: 16 Oct 2007

Hi everyone,
Please find attached (Editor's note: appended below) the minutes for the NRDSAG meeting from 16th October.
The dates for the NRDSAG and Diabetes Audit meetings next year will be the afternoons of Thursday May 22nd and Monday October 13th 2008 – venues to be confirmed. Please get these dates in your diaries now...
As ever, always interested in your thoughts or ideas on NRDSAG and how we can continue to take this forward. Would particularly like to hear from anyone interested in collaborating in looking at the regional data...
Also, Alan Charlton asked me to specifically highlight the User Involvement training conference on 6th December (Editor's note: appended below).

All the best

Simon

Dr Simon Eaton
Consultant Diabetologist
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
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User Involvement Training Conference
Web address: http://www.diabetes.nhs.uk/
Diabetes NSF Special Briefing
12 October 2007

Diabetes NSF Briefing
You can subscribe online to receive the Briefing directly into your mailbox at www.diabetes.nhs.uk
NDST Regional Events - Update Because of postal delays caused by the strike could anyone who has applied for either Leeds or London NDST event please call Sarah Iveson on 01661 839203 to confirm your place at the event

User Involvement training

Helping you to put people at the heart of diabetes services – free training for you in your region.

A round of training events commissioned by the National Diabetes Support Team (NDST) as part of their programme to support User Involvement is now underway. The training, delivered by specialists in Diabetes UK and London Metropolitan University is targeted at people with responsibility for diabetes within local health systems and aims to provide everything they need to more effectively involve service users in the development and improvement of diabetes services.

The programme has been carefully developed to ensure delegates have command of the methods and information that they need to enable their services to more effectively engage with the people who use diabetes services. It will also provide an introduction to the materials developed to support user involvement by the NDST including a self-assessment tool for services, guidance on involving people whose voices are not normally heard, and information about the other opportunities to be involved for service users and staff.

The training will be delivered regionally to allow as many people as possible to attend. Locations have been chosen because they are central to the region or have the best transport links. Where possible, parking will be provided.

If you can't attend the training day in your region you can sign up in one of the other regions – please get in touch.

For more information and to sign up please email: user.involvement@diabetes.org.uk

If you have any questions please contact David Jones, User Involvement Facilitator on 020 7424 1038 or at david.jones@diabetes.org.uk
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Northern Region Diabetes Service Advisory Group
Tuesday 16th October 2007 1.00 – 2.30pm
Lumley Castle, Chester-le-Street

Minutes

Present: Simon Eaton, Karen Butterfield, Kenvyn Murray, John Parr, K R Narayanan, Kate Latham, Alan Charlton, Chris Emmett (Medical Student), Alan McCulloch, Muthu Jayapaul, Paul Peter

Apologies: Shaz Wahid, Margaret Hunter, Bill Cunningham, Paul McClintock, Sally Marshall, Nicola Leech, Gillian Johnson, Gillian Hawthorne, Jola Weaver, Nick Lewis-Barned, Chris Strey

Previous minutes – accepted

User Representation and User Involvement
Alan Charlton is a member of the NDST Diabetes Reference Group, which is a trained user group along with Margaret Hunter. He discussed the nature of this group and their experiences.
He highlighted the user involvement training that will take place on the 6th December 2007 in Durham and asked us to try to encourage every organisation to encourage people to attend this.

Commissioning and Networks
It was acknowledged that there have been significant problems with networks over the past couple of years with rapid changeover of personnel, a lack of communication and there was a fear that we are losing what had been built up over the years. However some clinicians also reported starting to reform natural networks.
Many people reported a lack of movement from the commissioning perspective. They had had many meetings 12-18 months ago but really have not heard anything more subsequent to that. Simon Eaton briefly outlined the Year of Care Initiative - North Tyneside is one of the pilot sites.

NPfIT and the Diabetes Module
John Parr had hosted a demonstration of the diabetes module in South Tyneside the previous week. The functionality of the module looked good but there are difficulties linking it with other systems that may be in operation in Primary Care (such as EMIS) and also uncertainty how this will link with LORENZO (the Secondary Care system) in the future.

Simon Eaton attended an SHA engagement meeting last week and said that some of these problems were highlighted there. The main outcome of this meeting is to encourage clinicians to engage with NPfIT and the various module developments to ensure that the end product is fit for purpose. The main contacts would be Annette Chambers or Paula Whitty from NHS North East.

Simon Eaton also reported from a meeting he had attended regarding developments of the Diabetes Module particularly relating to the Do Once and Share Project that was held in the North East 2 years ago. This Module had been shared with the NRDSAG (albeit with very short time scales) a few months ago and it was highlighted that there were many limitations from the perspective of engaging people with diabetes in their care. At this meeting these limitations were acknowledged and there is ongoing work to try and redress this.

Linkage with SHA
As a consequence to the discussions around NPfIT there have been linkages formed between the SHA and the NRDSAG. It was agreed that we should work to strengthen these links as there may be much that either can benefit from the other. Simon Eaton will make contact with Paula Whitty to this end.

Diabetes Regional Interest Group
There had been a proposal from Jim Honeyman of GlaxoSmithKline and Steve Burney of Novo Nordisk about the potential positive value of an industry group to support work streams in this region. This may not be purely financial but may be around project management and bringing people together. The Scottish Diabetes Industry Group is an example of a similar forum which has had some successful outcomes.

Broadly it was felt that there was a potential value of this group and there was certainly an advantage to having a multiplicity of Pharma groups involved. There were no specific projects in mind at present. Simon Eaton suggested that he didn't feel this was a specific function for the NRDSAG and if anybody wished to lead or be involved in this then he could pass them on to Jim Honeyman directly.

The Diabetes Information Review
The group read and discussed the latest Diabetes Information Review report which focussed particularly on the Healthcare Commission Service review. A focus on patient education and involvement in care was also presented.

Broadly there was a mixed response to the service review and some centres had experienced stigma for having a "fair" rating. However it is acknowledged that this report had been performed and that it could now potentially be used as a drive to improve services and highlight the need for prioritisation or resource allocation.

Any Other Business
John Parr suggested a repeat of the regional myocardial infarction audit done around 10 years ago. There was support for this and John will contact centres directly.

Date of Next Meeting:
The dates for 2008 are the afternoons of Thursday May 22nd and Monday October 13th – venues to be confirmed.

NERRAG Annual Meeting 2007: 28 Nov

NERRAG Annual Meeting 2007
28th November
Lumley Castle, Chester-le-Street, County Durham

1410 Reception
1425 Welcome - Andy James

FIRST SESSION. CHAIR - Shaz Wahid
1435 MEN guidelines-an update Steve Ball, Newcastle University & RVI Newcastle.
1505 Audit of the biochemical detection of phaeochromocytoma - where are we now? Robert Peaston, Freeman Hospital
1525 Endocrine genetics in the North: emerging themes from a joint clinical approach. Paul Brennan & Steve Ball, James Cook University Hospital, RVI Newcastle & Newcastle University
1540 Ten years experience of thirty adrenocortical carcinomas: a case series. Sebastian Aspinall, RD Bliss, TWJ Lennard: Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne; BJ Harrison: Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield; D Scott-Coombes: University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff
1555 A retrospective study of pre-operative localisation imaging of parathyroid adenomas. Asgar Madathil & Kamal Abouglila, University Hospital of North Durham.
1610 Update on the management of difficult primary hyperparathyroidism. Sukesh Chandran & Simon Pearce, RVI Newcastle.
1625 Tea/Coffee

SECOND SESSION. CHAIR -Tim Cheetham
1645 Thyroid Nodules and Thyroid Cancer Petros Perros Freeman Hospital and Newcastle University
1715 Short stature: Increased in children with severe learning disability. Nadeem Abdullah, Paula Drummond, Nicola Davies, Omer Al-Khalidi, Raymond Barry, Tim Cheetham Department of Paediatrics and Community Paediatrics, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust
1730 Management of post-thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia in the immediate post-operative phase. Murray Head, Morris M, Bliss R, Jones N, Johnson S, Lennard T, Stafford F, Welch A, Perros P. Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
1745 The use of the Harmonic Scalpel in Thyroidectomy: beyond the learning curve. Foreman E H, Aspinall S, Lennard TWJL, Bliss R . Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust & Newcastle University.
1800 A retrospective audit of Radioiodine therapy for Thyrotoxicosis. Jeevan Mettayil, S.Ashwell, R.Bilous, V.Connolly, S.Jones, M.Kamaruddin, P.Varra, S.Nag, James Cook University Hospital.
1815 Severe Poikilothermia due to hypothalamic injury managed with a portable external heating vest. Srikanth Mada, S Kamaruddin, J Mettayil, W Kelly, G Young, S Nag, James Cook University Hospital.
1830 Management of Non-Functioning Pituitary Adenomas: A Retrospective Audit at James Cook University Hospital. Ian Coulter & Philip Kane, James Cook University Hospital.
1845 Summary, Discussion, and Thanks - Andy James
1855 Buffet

Training fee restructure with commitment to review

The Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board (JRCPTB) has changed its fee structure to better meet the needs of trainee doctors. The previous fee of £875 which had to be paid in full at entry can now be divided into two elements - £250 for Core Medical Training and £625 for Specialist Training. This will lessen the financial burden for younger doctors as they begin training to be a physician.
The change will take immediate effect, and any ST1 or ST2 trainee who has already paid the full fee of £875 will be refunded £625. ST3s already enrolled may claim back £250.
Trainees wishing to do this should contact the Board on 020 7935 1174 ext 283
This will not affect SpRs, who will continue to pay £875 on entry to specialist training, however, this can be paid in yearly installments as part of a College membership subscription, when it becomes tax deductible.
In addition to the changes, the Board will be reviewing other payment options in future, together with a refund policy.
Further information and future updates will be posted on the JRCPTB website: http://www.jrcptb.org.uk/
Best wishes,
JRCPTB

Motivational Interviewing workshop: 13 Dec 2007

An Introduction to Motivational Interviewing

Date: 13^th December 2007

Venue: Springfield Hotel, Gateshead

Chair: Jola Weaver, Senior Lecturer in Diabetes Medicine, Newcastle University

Invited Speaker: Lynne Johnston PhD, Clinical Psychologist

 

Programme
09:30 – 09:45 Introductions
09:45 – 10:00 Motivational interviewing and behaviour change
10:00 – 10:15 Understanding the process of change
10:15 – 10:45 Understanding and recognising resistance
10:45 – 11:00 Coffee
11:00 – 11:15 General principles of MI
11:15 – 12:30 Developing skills in essential strategies
12:30 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 13:15 Traps to avoid in consultations about change
13:15 – 13:45 Strategies to e licit change talk
13:45 – 14:30 Assessing and exploring readiness to change
14:30 – 14:45 Coffee
14:45 – 15:15 Building motivation for change
15:15 – 15:45 Information exchange and action planning
15:45 - 16:00 Questions and further information

Please contact Sylvia McEwen for further information and registration.
Supported by an educational grant from Sanofi-Aventis.

Trainers and Trainees Meeting, North Tees: 24 Jun 2008

Dear Colleague,

The annual Trainers and Trainees meeting will be held at North Tees on Tuesday 24th June 2008 from 1600hrs. The STC meeting will preceed this meeting and from 1730 hrs we will have the important SPARROWS feedback meeting when SpRs who attended the ADA can undertake a presentation related to the ADA.

It promises to be an entertaining evening. Please put it in your diary. I will forward a formal timetable nearer the date.

Regards,
Shaz Wahid.