IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

Issue Number 4 April 2016

Welcome to the fourth edition of our newsletter.

Spring is a time of hope and expectation – leaping lambs, dancing daffodils and bumbling bees! It is

certainly good to have the longer days.

We have undertaken our first Image Review Audit – Tracey will elaborate on this subject in the following

pages.

We have had a gold rush of staff becoming accredited. Kate T, Amy, Muneeb and Myra are all AVS –

many congratulations. Joao and Lou are next up in a couple of months. Good luck! Ruth, Ish and Ana

have all passed their PgC. Well done! Good luck to all staff undertaking PgC/SVT exams in the next

month or so.

Tracey and Steve have organised a Contrast Ultrasound study day hosted at UHSM – which was very

successful and again raised the profile of IVS on a national level

We have submitted all our evidence following the UKAS site assessments and we are awaiting the

response but they have confirmed that Oldham and North Manchester are back in scope. Just Bolton and

North Cheshire to go. We are still the only UKAS accredited vascular lab in the UK but there are 11 other

vascular labs who have registered.

Ish, Stuart, Rachel and Anisa reverted temporarily to their previous roles as AAA screeners and their

scan count was integral to us crashing through the 70,000 scan target this year.

Enjoy the newsletter and get involved!!

Thanks

Rich

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

CEUS study day Thurs 7th April

After lunch we went straight into a live

contrast ultrasound EVAR scan and

presentations from Zenda Galley the Bracco

representative on what Sonovue actually is.

Tracey gave a talk on practical consid-

erations of setting up the service including

equipment, training and implementing

practice.

Steve gave talks on performing the actual

scan, safety and physics of contrast scanning.

David Thompson, interventional radiologist

from UHSM discussed methods of dealing with

endoleaks be-fore we went into an

interactive session reviewing B-mode,

colour duplex and contrast ultrasound im-

ages of 6 case studies to encourage the

audience to make their own interpretation.

The small number who registered for the day

was disappointing and a sad reflection of the

reduction in training budgets of NHS Trusts.

Feedback from the day, however, was good

and there will also be an independent write

up in the SVT newsletter, hopefully

encouraging more members to attend next

time.

Tracey and Steve organised a CEUS assessment

of EVAR study day on behalf of the SVT which

took place on Thursday 7th April at UHSM.

Despite small numbers the day was hugely

successful. The morning talks included an

update from the NAAASP programme, how

patients are assessed for EVAR suitability and

how devices are chosen. The types of device

available and how this impacts on surveillance

and a fantastic talk from Mr Jonathan

Ghosh on the EVAR surgical procedure.

Just before lunch our own Andrew Pellew-

Nabbs (shown below) earned his place on

the course by delivering a short review of the

conventional du-plex of EVAR protocol and a

hands on practical workshop of EVAR duplex

using machines kindly loaned by Samsung.

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

Charity bike ride:

A team from Independent Vascular Services are taking on the challenge of cycling 60 miles from Manchester to Blackpool to raise funds for a very worthwhile cause, The Christie Hospital. Please support generously your support is most appreciated.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. It’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

You can help 'Vascular Spin Doctors' raise money for this great cause by donating directly to their fundraising page - https://www.justgiving.com/Brian-Hodgkinson1/?

utm_source=Sharethis&utm_medium=fundraisingpage&utm_content=BrianHodgkinson1&utm_campaign=pfp-email.

Team members: Brian Hodgkinson, Denise Nixon, Hannah Buggey, Fiona Burrows, Jo Clarke, Mike Crook

Thank you for your support!

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

IQIPS Patient Engagement Event

February 2016

As the only UKAS accredited vascular service

currently in the UK through the IQIPS process -

IVS were recently invited to participate in a

patient engagement event hosted by the

Royal College of Physicians down in London.

The idea of the event was to bring together

professionals from accredited physiological

services; those from services that were striving

to achieve accreditation; and

representatives from patient groups to

discuss the ways in which we could get the

message across to patients, clinicians and

CCGs about the importance of the IQIPS

process in setting a national standard of

accreditation.

Regrettably, Rich was unable to attend the

event as he was on holiday - so I went in his

stead and tried my very best to fill the void of

knowledge and experience left in his

absence. On a sunny day in February, I

travelled down to the RCP buildings

overlooking Regent’s Park to participate in a

three-stage event of talks from invited

speakers about the importance of patient

experience; roundtable discussions -

designed to raise awareness amongst

patient groups of the IQIPS process; and

finally a formal panel discussion - where we

discussed the tangible benefits to patients

with IQIPS accredited services, patient and

professional representatives.

I admit that I ate an indecent amount of

cake in between each session! The

afternoon tea alone was worth the journey

down there… And of course, there was

plenty of opportunity to chat with some

familiar faces involved in the IQIPS process

– including some of the people who came

to inspect our labs the following week.

The day kicked off with some very

informative talks from Neil Churchill

(Director for Patient Experience, NHS

England); Madeline Corrigan (IQIPS

Programme Manager) and Jane Blower

(Clinical Associate, Chief Scientific Office,

NHS England) about the patient experience

and how the IQIPS process feeds into how

we provide a consistent approach to

improving the patient experience in future.

Next came the round-table discussions,

where representatives from patient groups

had a chance to quiz those of us that were involved in IQIPS about how this benefits

their patients. These discussions were an

important opportunity to inform and

encourage these patient groups to invest in

the process and lobby their local CCGs to

engage with it too.

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

IQIPS Patient Engagement Event

February 2016 continued…

Patient advocacy groups play a significant role in

driving improvements, and the aim was to

establish an on-going communications channel

with these groups. In their role as advisory

services, these groups also exert influence over

patient and commissioner choice. These dual

roles provide an opportunity to raise awareness

among patients and commissioners that IQIPS

accredited services meet high standards of care

in all domains. Finally, I sat on a panel of professionals who had

experience of IQIPS and could take questions

from the delegates about the tangible benefits

of IQIPS and accreditation of physiological

services generally. The session was hosted by

Vivienne Parry OBE (BBC presenter, science

journalist and author) who was tasked with

drawing out questions from the audience and

grilling the panel for answers! Most of the

questions were from patient groups, wanting to

know what being accredited meant for the

patients they represent and why patients or

providers should care that their physiological

services were accredited at all.

The whole panel seemed to do a decent job of

convincing the delegates of the importance of

accreditation as a quality benchmark, although

there was still some concern over the notion of

CCGs preferentially commissioning accredited

services over non-accredited. It’s clear then that

achieving a national standard of quality has

some challenges still to be overcome!

Overall, the day was a really useful insight

into the IQIPS process for those who were

new to it; reinvigorated those services who

were just starting out on the road to

accreditation, convincing them to stay on

this challenging path; and hopefully

compelled patient groups to support the

process and spur their CCGs on to

considering accreditation when

commissioning contracts.

As far as IVS is concerned – as always, we are

already well ahead of the curve. We have

set the bar nationally for achieving

accreditation in Vascular Ultrasound, with

other labs across the UK only recently

embarking on this journey that has been

years in the making for us to now. Maintaining our accreditation is now more

important than ever – keeping us at the

forefront of an evolving movement that is

shaping the patient experience and setting

a benchmark for quality in physiological

services. Everyone at IVS has worked

incredibly hard to get us into this position and

can be proud of every hard-fought step

toward this. At some point in the (hopefully near) future,

accreditation through processes such as

IQIPS may be a fundamental determiner of

awarding contracts for services. The further

we can spread the message that IQIPS sets

the highest possible quality benchmark for

Vascular Ultrasound and should be an

aspiration for us all – the better service our

patients can expect to access locally and

nationally.

And of course – IVS will be leading from the

front!

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

There are four categories:

–

–

I would also like to receive any nominations for any alternative awards that you would like to see

sordid.

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

REMINDERS:

AUM

This year’s AUM has been confirmed for the 9th July.

We will be holding it at the Worsley Mariott in the Terrace suite.

The meeting will start at 2pm for talks and presentations until 6pm ish. Meal at 7.30pm. Please contact Rich if you have a case study to present. We will also be looking for a Guest speaker – let me know if you have any contacts that might be willing to speak to us.

Volumes (Feb 2016):

After 10 months we have completed 57750 vascular

investigations, this is 10.3% increase on this time last year!

We are on track to perform 69,717 scans this year. It would

be good to hit 70K!!!

Thanks for your continued hard work.

IVS Ltd … at the heart of health

As many of you will be aware, I’m leaving to have a baby soon so

Ruth has very kindly agreed to take over the editing of the

newsletter in my absence. Please join me in wishing her well in

this new endeavour and support her as well as you have me over

the past 12 months.

Ruth—you’ll do an excellent job I’m sure!

Thanks, Stacey x

Next edition: The summer IVS Newsletter will be published on

Friday 29th July 2016.

Please contact Ruth with anything you’d like to contribute.

Ruth.humpreys@ivs-online.co.uk

The information contained within this newsletter is for the sole use of IVS Ltd. employees and not for

redistribution. Any use of this information by persons other than those addressed is prohibited.