The latest meeting of the UK Radiopharmacy Group was held at the Beeches Management Centre in Bournville, Birmingham, prior to the annual workshop. Items of general interest are summarised below.
Shaping Careers/NOS/AfC
Several of our members attended a recent workshop called Shaping Careers for Healthcare Scientists. There is an NHS model of a career trajectory with nine steps and multiple entry routes supported by education and training programmes linked to a skills escalator (of course, Sir Humphrey). An attempt is being made to map radiopharmacy technical and professional posts to those nine steps (will excessive mapping of nine steps lead to a requirement for a twelve step programme?). A follow-up workshop will be held 25-26 March and several members will attend. The UKRG will also promote a generic job description and person specification for a principal/consultant radiopharmaceutical scientist.
The assessment guide for the National Occupational Standards (NOS-HCS) for radiopharmacy and nuclear medicine will be piloted in five centres each.
Agenda for Change (AfC) is rolling out very rapidly across the country but no outcomes for radiopharmacy have been reported from the early implementer sites.
BNMS Congress 2004 The UKRG will present one of its famous interactive sessions during the BNMS meeting in Brighton. The subcommittee responsible met in secret at Bournville and gleeful rubbing of hands was observed. Be prepared to be baffled!
Radiopharmacy Computer Software Bright Technologies expects to have a demonstration version of the Veenstra radiopharmacy software available during the Brighton meeting.
Excepted Packages There was discussion a few months ago about packaging for radiation excepted shipments. Alistair Millar from Edinburgh has prepared documentation for hard plastic cases which are available for less than £10 from component supply stores. This provides a good template which can be adapted to whatever packaging one chooses to use. Copies may be obtained from Paul Maltby (paul.maltby@rlbuh-tr.nwest.nhs.uk) .
Reported Problems Associated with Radiopharmaceuticals The quarterly compilation is now available electronically and should accompany this mailing. Technetium generators are prominent in this summary. There are three reports of the saline spike problem with the Drytec generator. The manufacturer is introducing a modification to the design which should result in greater support for the spike. There is also a bizarre incident in which a patient swallowed not only an I-131 capsule but also the perspex vial which contained it.
Handbook/Website The radiopharmacy handbook, available on the web site, has been updated to include HPLC methods for determination of radiochemical purity of selected radiopharmaceuticals. However, one section of the handbook which is incomplete is that on drug interactions. We want your help. Do you have a good listing of drug interactions or drugs which must be withdrawn before certain procedures? Would you be willing to share that information? If so, could you please send it to me on behalf of the handbook subcommittee james.ballinger@gstt.nhs.uk
Manufactured Specials Rationalisation of manufacturing within the NHS has taken place and some £44 million will be spent on upgrading facilities. The UKRG has input at several levels to ensure continuity of supply of the specials we require (e.g. ACD, tropolone, hetastarch).
Education/Training
The Easter course in radiopharmacy is being held at King's College London during the week of 19 April. For information please contact Dr Tony Theobald: phone 020 7848 4809, fax 020 7848 4800, anthony.theobald@kcl.ac.uk . It is possible that next year the course will be held earlier in the year due to administrative changes at King's.
The MSc programme in nuclear medicine (currently taken mainly by specialist registrars) may be broadened to encompass both diploma and certificate streams and opened to non medics.
VirRAD The VirRAD programme is ticking along. If you haven't registered yet, please do so at community.virrad.eu.org community.virrad.eu.org. If you have registered, please participate. It's been a little quiet since Christmas. Let's help build the community up. This can be an invaluable resource for sharing of information. Ask a question and 350 experts can give you an answer (probably 350 different answers).
Clinical Trials Directive The directive takes effect 01 May 2004. There had been concern that studies in which radiopharmaceuticals are used as surrogate endpoints (e.g. bone scans or GFRs in chemo trials) would be affected, but it is understood that there will be a waiver for standard application of currently approved radiopharmaceuticals. It is also anticipated that units which have a specials licence should be able to get a licence for clinical trails materials.
A presentation on the clinical trials directive made by V'Iain Fenton-May at the Pharmacy Aseptic Services conference last November is available on the CIVAS web site www.civas.co.uk.
Problems with Unlicensed Products Not problems with the products themselves, but rather problems with access to the products. Thank you to those who submitted their experiences of problems with unlicensed drugs. The list included scrambled egg for gastric emptying, 51Cr-EDTA for colonic permeability, adenosine from an NHS pharmaceutical manufacturing unit, intrinsic factor capsules, 14C-urea for breath tests, and Percoll for neutrophil separation.
Membership Changes The committee wishes David Bentley of the MHRA all the best in his retirement. We also welcome Rob Smith from the Wolfson PET Centre in Cambridge to the committee.
This and previous newsletters are (or will be shortly) available on the UKRG web site.
Note from the Editor The Editor, Jim Ballinger, can be reached in care of Nuclear Medicine, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RT, phone 020 7188 5521 or 020 7188 4116, fax 020 7188 4094 (please note: these are new numbers as of 6 March), e-mail james.ballinger@gstt.nhs.uk