BIRD’s Education Programme for Healthcare Professionals 2023-2024

BIRD organised a wide-ranging programme for the continued education and training of healthcare professionals, working closely with a range of health and education providers, including the Royal United Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, the University of Bath and the Bath GP Education & Research Trust. The programme was attended by Consultants, Clinical Staff, Academic and Clinical Researchers, GPs, Nurse Practitioners and Primary Care Healthcare Professionals.

BIRD provided the administration, support, including the accreditation and sponsorship where necessary, for educational events reaching 415 healthcare professionals.

Each of the training sessions was approved for accreditation by either the Royal College of Physicians or the Bath GP Education & Research Trust (depending on whether the attendees came from primary or secondary care) which enabled them to gain continuing professional development credits.

The programme for 2023/24 included the following events:

• One Rheumatology Research @ Bath meeting was held, bringing together researchers at the University and clinicians at the hospital to update one another on two new projects at a time.
• Two Bath & Bristol Bone meetings were held in May and November 2023 for consultants and clinical staff.
• The South West Axial Spondyloarthritis Group was held in November 2023 for consultants and clinical staff.
• Two South West CTD & Vasculitis meetings was held in March & September 2023 for consultants and clinical staff.
• Two Primary Care Rheumatology Update afternoon was held in April 2023 and March 2024 for GPs, Nurse Practitioners and Primary Care Healthcare Professionals.
• Knowledge Exchange with Stoke UHNM NHS Trust & RNHRD – BIRD provided the organisation and admin support for the Stoke visit to Bath. The two day events each Trust shared their practices and procedures for the Management of Spondyloarthritis.

Qualitative feedback collected from some of the sessions showed that participants rated talks either ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ with most comments finding the training “helpful” and a useful update;

“The hybrid option for meetings is really valuable and great to see so many attendees online. Great selection of speakers at these events, with fantastic external speakers. Good to see some younger investigators given chance to present and raise their profiles within the region.”

“These are always great meetings – all presentations excellent and very useful discussion. The meeting was very well organised and chaired.”

Where possible, BIRD secured sponsorship from numerous companies to cover the costs of these meetings. Those sponsoring had been given an exhibition stand at the meeting and a chance to network with attendees during refreshment/food breaks during the day. Each event is operated independently, and pharmaceutical companies had no editorial control over its contents. Our thanks to the various companies we have worked with to support our educational programme for 2022/23.

BIRD’s Educational Programme for 2023/24: