Health workers to share expertise (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Health workers to share expertise

11:39am Thursday 25th June 2009

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Bradford is set to share its expertise in women’s healthcare with the wider NHS as part of a ground-breaking training programme.

The city is hosting the first national training course for GPs to learn outpatient hysteroscopy – the safest and most accurate way to diagnose abnormal bleeding problems.

GPs from as far away as Scotland and London will be taking part in the course.

The session will form a joint venture between Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the Univer-sity of Bradford and the British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy.

As well as helping doctors to diagnose abnormal uterine bleeding, a hysteroscopy – which involves a tiny telescope thinner than a pencil being placed into the womb – may also be performed on women who have had recurrent miscarriages.

The new course will enable the procedure to be carried out closer to people’s homes in a GP setting.

It mirrors a similar training programme which was launched in Bradford eight years ago to equip hospital nurses with the necessary skills to carry out the procedure.

About 800 women from Bradford benefit from the outpatient hysteroscopy service each year, helping to make the city regarded as a centre of excellence nationally for this specialist work.

Miss Sian Jones, national coordinator of nurse and GP hysteroscopy training, and immediate past president of BSGE, and also a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist based at Bradford Royal Infirmary, said it was hoped that the sessions would be a big success and that more could be run.

“This new course is a first for GPs and builds on the successful training programmes we have run for nurses,” she said.

“There has been a lot of interest in the course from across the NHS and we hope to repeat it later in the year.

“It also feeds into the recommendations by Lord Darzi for the provision of more care provided closer to home when clinically appropriate and cost effective.”

The NHS in Bradford already provides outpatient hysteroscopies in a GP setting, as an alternative to hospital, through the treatment centre at Westwood Park.

Dr Anne Connolly, a GP who has a special interest in gynaecology, will be sharing her experiences to students on the course.

The inaugural hysteroscopy course takes place between next Monday and Wednesday in the Field House postgraduate teaching centre at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

It is being supported by Ethicon Women’s Health and Urology.

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