The Group held its most recent meeting at King's College, London. A tube strike did not deter attendees, though we got rather more exercise than we anticipated (not necessarily a bad thing for our largely middle-aged membership). Items of general interest are summarised below.
Education and Certification of Radiopharmaceutical Scientists A set of National Occupational Standards for Health Care Scientists is being prepared for the Department of Health and radiopharmaceutical science will be recognised as a separate discipline (one of about 60). Representatives of UKRG met with the NOSHCS consultants on 22 May to begin the process of "function mapping". The meeting was refreshingly productive and resulted in a largely complete first draft of radiopharmacy-specific functions. There will be cross-references to functions in Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Protection, and to generic functions such as health and safety, research and development, handling of specimens, provision of advice, and development of policies and procedures. The level or grade of practitioner able to carry out each function will then be established.
The draft function map is being circulated to the committee for comment with a deadline of 01 September. A subgroup will meet in September to formalise our response to NOSHCS and our next workshop with the consultants is scheduled for 07 November. The goal is to have all specialty functions in place by May 2004.
Radiopharmacy Software Packages Professor Peter Jarritt, consultant physicist in Belfast, is spearheading an effort to design and develop a radiopharmacy software package specifically for the UK regulatory environment. The proposal would be to commission a commercial software package with the design specified by a user group from within the UK. The package would be modular and each radiopharmacy would purchase only those modules required for its scope of operation. A workshop was held on 28 June at which about a dozen representatives began by looking at existing in-house systems. Significantly, there was no commercially available system in use at any of the centres, and a number are still using pen and paper (guilty as charged!). A universal system would need to communicate with the NHS computer network (and within that the local radiology and nuclear medicine networks), yet also have the flexibility of receiving data from external sources such as universities and veterinarians. A list of key functions/modules was compiled and four were identified as common to all: ordering, stock control, unit dose dispensing, and central radiopharmacy dispensing. Progress was made toward establishing detailed process specifications for these modules and the associated data entry screens. It is likely that another meeting will be held in the near future to finalise the specifications, then a number of software companies (including those already offering radiopharmacy software) will be invited to present a demo module as proof of concept. It is estimated that the cost of the full 10-12 modules would be ~£4000, with individual modules at ~£350 each.
Radiopharmacy Workshop 2003 The UKRG workshop has been scheduled for 16-17 January 2003 in Bournville, with the UKRG meeting on 15 January. The two-day workshop entitled "Introduction to PET and PET Radiopharmaceuticals"is being organised by Paul Maltby (Liverpool), Julie Sutcliffe-Goulden (St Thomas's) and John Clark (Cambridge), and will address radionuclides and their production, radiopharmaceutical preparation, radiation protection, imaging equipment, and clinical and research applications of PET.
VirRAD VirRAD (Virtual Radiopharmacy), a learning community funded by the European Commission for a three-year period, now has a tangible, or at least virtual, presence in the form of a web site: www.virrad.org. One of its first objectives is, laudably, to determine what sort of information it should be providing. To that end, a questionnaire is available on the web site and persons at all levels of experience are encouraged to reply. Please make others in your department aware of this and encourage participation.
Education and Training The current Aseptic Preparation and Dispensing of Medicines course (APDM) that runs twice yearly at Leeds University is appropriate for both senior (MTO3) and (MTO2) radiopharmacy technicians. A one-day refresher course will be offered soon for those who have already taken the APDM course. Managers of aseptic units are welcome on the above courses.
Adverse Reactions / Defective ProductsThe latest tabulation should be included with this Newsletter. There are more reports than usual this quarter, probably reflecting a higher rate of reporting rather than a higher incidence. A number of reports are from outside the UK, possibly in response to the recent annual report in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Manufactured "Specials" for Radiopharmacy Cambridge Laboratories thanked those who had submitted comments on packaging of potassium iodate tablets 85 mg and will take these comments under consideration.
Radiopharmacy Handbook The Handbook is available on the UKRG web site and will be updated on an ongoing basis. As some users prefer to download a complete copy, a zipped e-book version is also available on the web site; however, this version will be current only to the download date.
Clinical Trials The EU Directive on Good Clinical Practice in clinical trials (The Clinical Trials Directive 2001/20/EC) is now open for comment. More information can be found on the main page at www.mca.gov.uk and the guidelines themselves at pharmacos.eudra.org . Prof Mather has been asked to respond on behalf of UKRG.
Positron Emission Tomography PET is on the verge of taking off, or so we have been told for a number of years. Those holding their breath would be decidedly cyanotic by this point. The oncologists at my centre have said that a recent paper in the Lancet may be sufficient to tip the balance of opinion and PET will be considered more seriously (H van Tinteren et al, 20 April). The Health Technology Board of NHS-Scotland has prepared a detailed analysis (some 150 pages as a 2-MB pdf) of the use of PET in lung cancer which is well worth a look (www.htbs.org.uk).
Note from the Editor The editor, Jim Ballinger, Nuclear Medicine, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, phone 01223 217351, fax 01223 274596, e-mail jim.ballinger@addenbrookes.nhs.uk, welcomes replies, whinges, or any other indication that people actually read this far!
HOT OFF THE PRESS: On the very day that we were meeting in London, the boffins at the NHS announced that we will all be getting new e-mail addresses next year. Every employee within the NHS will have a simple e-mail address for life, e.g. marie.curie@nhs.net.