As always, and as it should be, your Board has a lot of work going on. Recent weeks have been partnership and paediatric focussed.
I have been privileged to attend the recent Paediatric Focus Day in Milton Keynes and met the 75 Audiologists who attended, many familiar and some new faces. Although we are not trying to teach anything new or radical, the main focus was on what is acceptable, to standard, and being able to think outside the rules when needed. We want these days to be open, honest and provoke discussion, and that is exactly what happened, proving there are no strict rules as to what you do in what order. We learn the prescriptive ways in our early role development, but as we develop our skills and knowledge, we start to think more widely. It is what is best to do at that moment when you are in the clinical setting with the child and parents. It demonstrates clearly that continuing professional development and networking with peers is critical in developing ourselves and services, and hence providing the best for our patients and stakeholders.
HTS is one way to develop postgraduate, and we are delighted to launch a pilot for ‘equivalence’ for those who have been working in the profession for a certain time, and have never had the chance to attend post grad courses. Look out for all the information on the website.
Don’t forget, we also have the paediatric webinars. The recordings are in the Knowledge Hub here.
I attended the BCIG Conference in Cardiff on the 26th and 27th April, which was well attended by nearly 200 delegates from Implant centres across the UK and the Implant manufacturers and charitable bodies. It was a great conference at which Martin O’Driscoll from the Richard Ramsden Centre for Implants at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, launched the CI module on the HTS programme, so thanks to Martin for this. Thanks to Rebecca Anderson and her team at BCIG for a successful two days.
We also got to speak to many of the delegates, which was great for me. Comments from some ENT Consultants included thanks to the BAA for launching the CI Champion Programme. For this we have to thank Martin O’Driscoll, Anne-Marie Dickinson and Unai Martinez de Estibariz from BCIG. There was a CI Champion session on the first day, which I sat in. It was good to hear what the manufacturers are doing to support the Champions.
I also attended the North East regional meeting, and the topics were timely in light of mental health week last week. Resilience was a feature, and I took copious notes to share with my team. Catch it on the website if you missed it.
I am now looking forward to meeting our Northern Ireland (and some of our Eire members) on the 17th May in Belfast for our next Paediatric Focus Day. We are hijacking their regional meeting for this, but I am sure our NI Rep, Mandy, will forgive us!
The Scottish Audiology Review Group held its first meeting last week, and BAA is represented on the group by Claire Benton and me. We are there to support our Scottish colleagues and get the best outcomes for them for the future. Many of us have workforce issues, and this is something we are working with our partners on.
Let’s hope we have some good weather and start enjoying the outdoors again – all good for our mental health, especially when many of us spend lots of time in front of a computer screen!
Take care
Kath Lewis
*Please contact Kath on admin@baaudiology.org about any of the points above