British Liver Transplant Group

Introduction:

The BLTG (British Liver Transplant Group) was formed in 2014 to represent the professional interests of liver transplantation in the UK and promote strategic and academic development. 

BLTG’s purpose is to improve the education, management and quality of research on liver transplantation.

The BLTG Chair is the voice of transplant professionals at the NHSBT Liver Advisory Group.

BLTG is a special interest society of BASL and aims to work with other national and international societies to represent transplant professionals.

BLTG’s current priorities are to:

• have a patient centred focus, involving patient representatives in its membership and promoting collaboration between centres to harmonise practice and reduce unwanted variation.
• promote communication and collaboration amongst the membership via regular newsletters, webinars and the annual meeting.
• foster closer working with BTS (British Transplant Society) to better represent all health professionals involved in liver transplantation.

BLTG Annual Transplant Meeting - October

The annual BLTG meeting brings together all professionals in the UK with an interest in liver transplantation. The meeting links to the BASL Annual Meeting and incorporates the Williams-Calne Lecture which honours past achievements in UK transplantation and promotes future developments. The meeting incorporates a mixture of case discussion, audit and scientific presentations with the winner of the Andy Burroughs Young Investigator Award delivering their prize lecture during the meeting.

Further details can be found on the Events page of the website and on the standalone conference website > Here . 

BLTG UK Liver Critical Care & Anaesthesia Transplant School Webinar Series 

The BASL BLTG School of Transplantation offers an excellent platform for all healthcare professionals with lectures delivered by carefully selected leading speakers.

The 2023-24 BLTG UK Liver Critical Care and Anaesthesia Transplant School was a series of monthly webinars (held via Zoom), aimed at promoting education and sharing knowledge amongst the seven UK Liver Transplant centres. We covered a wide variety of topics relevant to the perioperative and critical care management of these patients, delivered by expert clinicians from around the UK and the world.

BASL members can watch the series on catch up via the BASL website members area.

The programme for the series can be viewed here:  Download BLTG UK Liver Critical Care & Anaesthesia Transplant School Webinar Series 2023-2024_website v4.pdf

Visit the Events page for details of the current webinar series. 

The BLTG Committee

Prof Matthew Cramp Consultant Hepatologist, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth
Prof Cramp is a Consultant Hepatologist at the South West Liver Unit, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, and Professor of Hepatology at the Peninsula Medical School with a major interest in liver transplantation.

He moved from Kings to Plymouth 22 years ago starting as a single handed hepatologist and went on to establish high quality, comprehensive specialist liver services previously unavailable to patients from the southwest peninsula. This led to the formation of the South West Liver Unit in 2010 which now has 9 hepatologists and 5 hepatobiliary surgeons. In parallel with clinical service development, he has established an active program of clinical and laboratory-based research and heads the Hepatology Research Group at the Peninsula Medical School. He has contributed to national service development, policy, training and research in a number of national roles including as past President of the British Association for the Study of the Liver (2017-2019) and as one of the founder members of the Lancet Commission on Liver Disease.

He has long been an advocate for improving liver services nationally through the model of multi-professional working and the building of strong clinical networks. Examples of these include the Peninsula Hepatology Network and the SWLU/ Kings College Hospital transplant network both of which have succeeded in raising standards of care for patients with liver disease, established novel patient pathways and been used as models for service delivery nationally.

Dr Brian Hogan, Royal Free Hospital, London
Brian is the Lead Clinician in Liver Critical Care at Royal Free London, specialising in critical care for patients with liver failure and those needing liver transplantation. Prior to being appointed at Royal Free London, he was a Consultant Hepatologist and Intensivist at King's College Hospital. He qualified from University College London Medical School and completed specialist training in Critical Care Medicine, Hepatology and Liver Transplant at The Royal Free Hospital and at King's College Hospital. His research at University College London (UCL) was focused on novel methods of assessing portal hypertension in patients with severe liver disease. He aims to support high quality care, equity of access for patients and reduced unwanted variation through regional national collaborations.

Dr Oliver Tavabie, Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust
I am a Consultant Hepatologist based at the Leeds Liver Unit. I graduated from the University of Southampton in 2010 and have undertaken specialist Hepatology training at the Royal London, Royal Free and King’s College Hospital. My clinical and research interests span across liver failure syndromes and liver transplantation. I undertook a research fellowship in the Regenerative Medicine group at the Institute of Liver Studies at King’s college Hospital and was awarded the Roy Calne award by the British Transplantation Society for my work developing novel microRNA based prognostic models in acute liver failure. I have an interest in clinical research and was awarded Andy Burroughs award by British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL) for my work investigating outcomes for patients with decompensated cirrhosis across the UK. I have a strong interest in Medical Education and have previously had formal teaching roles at the University of St Andrews and developed and led the Virtual School of Hepatology during my time as BASL Trainee Rep.

Dr Nwe Ni Than (MBBS, MD, FRCP), Consultant Hepatologist, University Hospital Coventry NHS Trust
Dr Than is a consultant Hepatologist based at the University Hospital Coventry NHS Trust. She qualified from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2006. She was trained in many transplant centres such as Royal Infirmary Hospital In Edinburgh, University Hospital Birmingham and Royal Free Hospital. She completed the NIHR funded research at the University of Birmingham in 2018 and her research is b focused on haematopoietic stem cell therapy in patients with liver cirrhosis. She had also worked as a clinical fellow at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She looks after patients with acute and chronic liver diseases as well as after liver transplantation. She has a keen interest in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and autoimmune liver disease.

Dr Suehana Rahman, Royal Free Hospital, London
Dr Rahman MBBS BSc (Hons) FRCA, is a Consultant Hepatobiliary and Liver Transplant Anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, London. During her transplant fellowship she undertook research in cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and acute kidney injury after transplantation. She is an active member of the Royal Free Perioperative Research Group and current anaesthetic representative for the British Liver Transplant Group.  

Catherine McAnenny, Scottish Liver Transplant Unit, Royal Infirmary Edinburgh
Catherine McAnenny qualified as a dietitian in 1997. She started her career off in Scotland but moved to London in 2000 and worked in UCLH, working in the clinical areas of Haematology, the Teenage Cancer Unit, and the Adolescent unit. She also worked in university hospital Lewisham working in the clinical areas of Critical Care and Infectious Diseases. On moving back to Edinburgh, she worked in the Regional Infectious diseases unit before securing the lead dietetic post in the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit in 2004. She is a member of the UK & ROI hepatology specialist Dietitian Group.

Suzanne Lester, Royal Belfast Hospital
Suzanne is an Advanced Physiotherapist Practitioner in Liver Transplantation and Prehabilitation. She is also an R&D Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. She is in her first year of a 3-year PhD researching the co-design and feasibility of a remote multicomponent intervention for patients awaiting liver transplantation. Additional research interests include respiratory interventions and training, rehabilitation and exercise psychology in patients awaiting liver transplantation and the wider liver disease population. 

Felicity Williams, University Hospitals, Birmingham
Felicity is a Senior Liver Physiotherapist and NIHR Clinical Research Fellow at University Hospitals Birmingham and University of Birmingham. She is in her final year of completing her PhD on the assessment of sarcopenia in end-stage liver disease. Further research interests include prehabilitation, rehabilitation and physical activity in patients awaiting liver transplantation.