The most recent meeting of the Group took place on Thursday April 6th at Kings College, London immediately after the Radiopharmacy module of the PTQA course. Initial feedback seem to indicate the course had been well received.
Type A containers. Gravatom gave a presentation on their range of Type A containers, which have been developed from and replaced the AEA cases. Hopefully they should be commercially available in the near future. Two types of container for vials and one for syringes are to be marketed. Further information available from Philip Cullum phone 01489 896010. His e-mail is Pcullum@Gravatom.com. The company’s website is www.gravatom.com.
In addition, Croft are relaunching their container at a cost of approximately £2000. Further information is available from Croft Associates phone 01235 464360. E-mail sales@croftltd.demon.co.uk. the company’s website is www.croftltd.demon.co.uk.
News on the "ammoboxes" from Amersham is still awaited.
Radiopharmacy Handbook Progress on revision continues and the information is being adapted by the IT department at St Georges Hospital for incorporation into a Web Site. Guidance from the MCA means that reference to unlicensed products cannot be made on the website.
Defective radiopharmaceutical products / adverse reactions database. The latest collation was circulated and discussed. Feedback from the problem relating to iodine 131 capsules having a higher than specified activity appears to be related to a transient radiometer calibration problem at the manufacturer, which has since been resolved.
On-line reporting is now available at www.bnms.org.uk. Development of the website has been discussed with the BNMS. An interactive queriable database has been raised, but there are lots of issues to resolve before this can become operational.
IR(ME)Regulations. These come into force on May13th.The group has submitted views to the DoH on how the necessary training and accreditation of staff could be achieved. This involves accreditation of prior learning and development of training portfolios. A response has not yet been received.
Radiopharmacy Training. Proposals are being developed for an annual 1 week training course to be held at Kings College London. The first is proposed for April 2001. It is intended to be on a modular basis and specific topics could be provided on individual days e.g. training to satisfy IR(ME)R requirements. The course would also be designed to meet the requirements of the Leeds PTQA course and the London University M.Sc. in Nuclear Medicine. It is also intended to provide a certificate to candidates who successfully pass an exam.
MCA Guidance Note 14 has eventually been published and can be obtained from the MCA Information Centre (Fax 0207273 0353). The impact on supply of radiopharmaceuticals is not likely to be significant.
MCA consultative document MLX 260 "Sale, Supply and Administration of Medicines by Health Professionals under Patient Group Directions" The group made a response to this document within the comparatively short consultation period. Comments made sought clarification as to whether it applied to radiopharmaceuticals at all, since they had been previously identified by a request card. Other matters raised were the fact that radiopharmaceuticals are prescription only medicines and thus a mechanism whereby the request card can be treated as a prescription is needed. The utilisation of written guidelines from the practitioner as required under IR(ME)R seems a possible route. In addition, if the proposed legislation were to apply to radiopharmaceuticals, clinical scientists and MTO’s need to be added to the groups of health professionals who could operate within it. Further news is eagerly awaited.
Tenth European Symposium on Radiopharmacy and Radiopharmaceuticals. This has been arranged for May 5-8th 2001 in Granada, Spain. The conference venue will be the Alhambra Hotel, within walking distance of the famous palace. Programme content is being planned and a second announcement will be made at the EANM congress in Paris in August.
BNMS meeting Brighton April 2000. The group ran one of the interactive sessions involving problems with patient studies which may or may not have been due to the radiopharmaceutical. Over 200 people attended the session and each of the 5 cases presented stimulated interesting discussion. Hopefully, everybody learnt something from the session !
Guidelines for provision of radiopharmacy support to Nuclear Medicine. Follow the publication of the guidelines for Physics support in Nuclear Medicine, the BNMS has requested a similar document for Radiopharmacy services. A first draft has been drawn up and will be further discussed prior to submission, hopefully by the Autumn.
Please contact me if you have any views, comments you wish to raise.
Stuart Hesslewood Newsletter Editor
Phone 0121 507 4045 Fax 0121 507 5223
e-mail: s.r.hesslewood@aston.ac.uk