Regions Update Autumn 2022

North Thames

Our newsletter for Autumn 2022

North West

The North West committee has been expanding its membership and we welcome Specialist Trainee Nishma Harker as trainee representative.

We had a very successful virtual regional meeting on the 28th of June with a varied programme of speakers including ‘what the geriatrician needs to know about menopause’ delivered by Dr Zoe Hodson, and a session on ‘green inhaler prescribing’.  Our next event is a trainees meeting on 7th February which will be virtual.  We plan to arrange face to face meetings going forward.  Please keep an eye out for events on our webpage which has been revamped by the very talented Dr Hunaynah Patel, a trainee hoping to specialise in Geriatric medicine in the future.

South East Thames

On 6 October, we were delighted to join with our SE Thames colleagues for our autumn regional meeting. The theme for the day was end of life care and frailty. We were really grateful to our speakers who covered this from a range of view perspectives including: the hospice, primary care, Hospital at Home and within the acute trust, and who all highlighted not only the challenges in managing this group of patients but the existing and continued opportunities for integrated working. Planning care for these patients is often impacted by their uncertain prognosis. However, through the talks and a dynamic panel discussion we gained greater understanding of the importance of working together across the speciality and MDT interface, and the importance of starting the ACP discussion early!

Good communication as ever was recognised as being a vital part of this and can address and allow us to acknowledge uncertainty where this arises. The ‘one chance to get this right’ provided a useful focus of approach to take away from this meeting, and we hope it sparked some important discussion and thoughts for the attendees in how they can support their patients and colleagues.

The afternoon saw a varied programme of lightening round abstracts covering topics relevant to the theme of the day including; AKI in frailty patients, hospital associated deconditioning, medication optimisation, safer ward rounds and a GeriPal project focussing on managing frailty and EOLC patients. We were delighted to see that such good work is ongoing within the regions. The committee were really pleased to award the presentation prize to AKI in Frailty Patients: How could we assess those at risk of adverse outcomes? An extended Literature Review which was presented by Kim Foster

South West Thames

Do you have ideas about what you would like to see for your regional meetings, and would you like to hear more about what other local services are doing? Do you like organising things? Or want to see regional issues elevated to national level? Please come and get involved!

After a period of Covid-inflicted quiescence, we are now looking for people to join, reinvigorate and/or lead the South West BGS committee.

2 year positions including two Co-chairs, as well as other committee members are available.

Any BGS members are welcome, whether new members or longstanding, allied healthcare professional, nurse, doctor, whether fully qualified or still in training!

Working together, this committee is responsible for initiating and organising regional events (with BGS-central logistical and financial support), and acts as your link to the national BGS, with a representative attending the quarterly BGS England Council meetings. There is scope to develop the committee’s role and interests however, depending on the members’ interests and motivations!

The formal BGS job description for Co-chairs is as follows:

The Co- Chair role provides a great opportunity for a BGS member to help to create a supportive and collaborative local environment for fellow healthcare professionals specialising in the care of older people.

Working jointly with another Co-Chair, your duties include:

· Contribute, learn and share best practice at the England Council meeting (quarterly)

· Programme development for region meetings i.e., confirming programme topics and speakers, ensuring all events meet the needs of a multidisciplinary audience

· Help to promote meeting dates to external audiences to generate good attendance

· Contribute to the quarterly all regional e-bulletin: Highlighting what’s happening in your region and sharing best practice

· Encourage support from trainee representatives and their development 

· Develop peer-support and learning opportunities for BGS members in the region

· Highlight opportunities to grow local networks of BGS members, including recruiting new members

 For further information about what is involved, the current Chair Anita (Anita [dot] Goff [at] SomersetFT [dot] nhs [dot] uk) or Secretary Suzy (suzy [dot] hope [at] nhs [dot] net) would be more than happy to chat. Otherwise, please just send a short Expression of Interest to Mark Stewart (m [dot] stewart [at] bgs [dot] org [dot] uk)

Wessex

Regionally for Wessex, there has been some great work looking at a common CGA format that has involved health and social care providers across Wessex and coordinated by the Wessex AHSN.

The work for Virtual Wards (VW) continues to dominate all our lives in Wessex, with a greater emphasis on managing older people living with frailty out of hospital (which is most people’s preference). This work is often crossing organisational boundaries to ensure that the VW are Consultant led.

AHSN are also leading on a new prescribing initiative for older people which is due to start soon.

West Midlands

West Midlands would like to raise the success of the regional meeting which highlighted the work of Community Urgent response teams and their impact in the care of our older adults at home; the role of the geriatrician within trauma services within the region and then an afternoon celebrating the research of our trainees.

The West Midlands would like to wish Dr Rob Wears a very happy and long retirement and sincerely thank him for all of the support that he has provided for the trainees over the years. The West Midlands would like to send a warm welcome to Dr. Huma Naqvi as the new training programme director for the West Midlands. We would also like to welcome our new Trainee Representatives Shalini, Sarah and Mahjabeen - we look forward to working with them.