BASL

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Special Interest Group

The Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Special Interest Group (SIG) is linked to the Metabolic CRN topic area. The SIG lead is Dr Stuart McPherson (elected February 2022) of Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. If anyone wishes to join the group please contact the BASL Secretariat on matt@basl.org.uk.

Mission

To understand, prevent and treat NAFLD, and to reduce its impact on health as well as health services.

Aims

To promote and support the development, conduct and delivery of research activity related to NAFLD.

To disseminate innovations and best practices in clinical services related to NAFLD.

To involve patient representatives in the activities of the SIG.

To lead, contribute and participate in the development of educational activities related to NAFLD.

To engage with pharma regarding research and educational activities related to NAFLD.

To respond on behalf of BASL to national or international organisations on issues related to NAFLD.

Quality standards for the management of NAFLD

Overview

The BSG/BASL NAFLD special interest group has developed a series of evidence-based quality standard recommendations, with the aim of improving the care of people with NAFLD. It is known that NAFLD is common, affecting 25% of the UK population and management of the condition is variable. Individuals with NAFLD have an increased risk of overall mortality compared with the general population, and common causes of death include cardiovascular disease, malignancy and liver-related complications. A holistic approach is therefore needed to address liver disease, as well as cardio-metabolic risk factors.

The recommendations were developed using a modified Delphi process by a multidisciplinary group of 29 individuals from all disciplines involved in the management of people with NAFLD, and cover: 1. Management of people with, or at risk of, NAFLD before the gastroenterology or liver clinic; 2. Assessment and investigations in secondary care; 3. Management in secondary care. We have also developed 11 auditable key performance indicators (KPIs) to enable service to review the care of their patients and benchmark their practice.

Manuscript and summary documents

The full manuscript can be found here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468125322000619?dgcid=author. (Free access to the manuscript will be available for 50 days from Friday 28 April 2022.)

Click here for the Download Summary of the NAFLD quality standard recommendations for website_l.pdf

NAFLD national audit - closed

We are conducting a national retrospective audit to identify practice of outpatient NAFLD management according to national quality standards/international guidelines and explore the changes in NAFLD outpatient services over the last 3 years across the UK. This will require registration as an audit with the local clinical audit department and a search of new patients reviewed in outpatient Gastroenterology and Hepatology clinics with suspected or confirmed diagnosis of NAFLD in March 2019 and March 2022. No centre or patient-identifiable data will be included in any results disseminated. A nominated Gastroenterology or Hepatology consultant will receive a report of local results, with reference to the national findings at a later date for future auditing purposes.

If you would like to get involved, please access the documents below and follow the necessary steps:

Instruction letter including link to survey: Download NAFLD audit_instruction letter for data collection_new.pdf

Audit registration form: Download NAFLD audit_audit registration form.pdf

An audit registration form in Word format can be obtained by emailing paula@basl.org.uk or wenhao.li@nhs.net.

Please submit all collected data by the extended deadline - 30th September 2022.

If there are further questions regarding this project, we would be more than happy to answer them and you can contact us by emailing wenhao.li@nhs.net.