News

Due to the current BASL Surgery Representative stepping down BASL are seeking expressions of interest for this position.

The Surgery Representative will serve on the BASL Committee for a maximum term of 3 years and 2 years alternating and may be re-elected once. The representative is expected to attend BASL Committee meetings (face to face or teleconference) as well as the Annual Meeting in September.

Nomination Process
Please send nominations to the BASL Secretariat at judy.hawksworth@execbs.com by the deadline of 17:00 Tuesday 5th December 2017.

Candidates wishing to be considered for election must be a BASL member and will require one BASL member to propose them and a second BASL member to confirm their suitability for the role in writing.

If more than one candidate is nominated, the Secretariat will arrange for an election of all members. He/she will be elected by simple majority of those members voting. A member can be re-elected once to the post of Surgery Representative.

A personal statement, containing no more than approx. 300 words will be required from the candidates should an election need to take place.

The newly elected BASL Surgery Representative will take up their post straight away and will step down at the Annual Business Meeting of the Association during the BASL Annual Meeting in September 2020.

If you require any further information please contact judy.hawksworth@execbs.com .

‘Today’s budget represents a huge missed opportunity for the Government to tackle alcohol harm and protect our most vulnerable.

‘The freezes on alcohol duty the Chancellor has announced represent a real terms cut in duty, and a £1.2 billion tax giveaway to an alcohol industry which has already benefitted from successive duty cuts in previous budgets.

‘The planned increase in duty on some high-strength ciders appears like a small step in the right direction. However, in reality it will have minimal impact. A three-litre bottle of white cider at the newly proposed 6.8% ABV strength will contain more than 20 units of alcohol yet could still be sold for £3.50. This will do very little to protect dependent drinkers and children that consume these damaging products.

‘Furthermore, this measure will not come into effect until 2019 and in the meantime the price of high strength cider will fall because of today’s duty freeze.

‘This strengthens the case for minimum unit pricing of alcohol. With minimum pricing now judged to be legal by the Supreme Court and Scotland and Wales moving to implement the measure, it is important that England does not get left behind in terms of reducing alcohol-related harm.’

About the Alcohol Health Alliance UK
The Alcohol Health Alliance UK (AHA) is a group of over 50 organisations including the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of GPs, British Medical Association, Alcohol Concern and the Institute of Alcohol Studies. The AHA works together to:
- Highlight the rising levels of alcohol-related health harm
- Propose evidence-based solutions to reduce this harm
- Influence decision makers to take positive action to address the damage caused by alcohol misuse

For further information, please contact Matt Chorley, the AHA’s Policy and Communications Officer, at matt.chorley@rcplondon.ac.uk or on 07748 757376.

Commenting on the editorial published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology on the new definition of alcohol mortality proposed by Office for National Statistics (ONS), Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said:

“We agree entirely with the concerns outlined in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology about the revised definition for alcohol deaths from the ONS.

“The new definition will mean that a high number of liver disease deaths where we know that alcohol is the cause will no longer be recorded as being linked to alcohol.

“This reduction will give the wrong impression to the public that alcohol deaths are going down, when in fact the burden of alcohol on our nation’s health and health service is growing, with alcohol-related hospital admissions going up, and liver disease rates on the rise.

“Medical experts across the country have warned that it is premature for the ONS to alter the definition in the way it has proposed. The reasons are technical, but it comes down to the fact that more research is needed on the exact link between alcohol and certain categories of liver disease deaths.

“We recommend that the ONS hits the pause button on the work it is doing to alter the definition of alcohol deaths, until the necessary research has been done. This research could be done quickly and cheaply, in a handful of liver centres across the country.”

The editorial is available by clicking > here.

About the Alcohol Health Alliance UK

The Alcohol Health Alliance UK (AHA) is a group of over 50 organisations including the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of GPs, British Medical Association, Alcohol Concern and the Institute of Alcohol Studies. The AHA works together to:
- Highlight the rising levels of alcohol-related health harm
- Propose evidence-based solutions to reduce this harm
- Influence decision makers to take positive action to address the damage caused by alcohol misuse

For further information, please contact Matt Chorley, the AHA’s Policy and Communications Officer, at matt.chorley@rcplondon.ac.uk or on 0203 075 1726.

Improving Quality in Liver Services (IQILS) is a new scheme based on the work of the LiverQuest project.

The project led by the RCP London and supported by BASL and the BSG supports the national strategy to improve medical liver services for patients.

IQILS is run by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) working in partnership with the Liver community, the professional bodies, societies and patient groups.

IQILS is open to all liver services across the UK and currently 18 services have signed up and are working towards accreditation. A list of these services can be viewed on the RCP website here; https://www.iqils.org/Default.aspx?PageId=66 .

Should you have any questions about IQILS please contact Madeline Corrigan, IQILS Programme Manager at the RCP at madeline.corrigan@rcplondon.ac.uk .

PSC Support and UK-PSC are inviting applications from UK-based investigators to conduct, ethically approved, biomarker based, research using serum samples collected for the UK-PSC biobank during the recent re-consenting effort. Clinical data is available and ethics exist for the successful research teams to collect further data.

Grant Amount and Scope  - two grants of up to £15,000 each will be awarded.

Pilot and feasibility work to enable larger grant applications will be considered.

Your research project must address PSC Support Research Priorities and have anticipated clear patient benefit, as regards potential use of biomarkers in PSC management.

PSC Support is an NIHR non-commercial Partner. Appropriate research studies funded through 'PSC Support Research Project Grants' are now automatically eligible for NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) support and therefore entitled to access NHS support via the NIHR Clinical Research Network.

Applications
Applicants should send their completed PSC Support Application Form together with additional relevant study investigator CVs, ethics approval and letter of support from the relevant Head of Department to research@pscsupport.org.uk .

UK-PSC Biobank
At present we have just under 900 serum samples stored in the Cambridge Bioresource. Serum is aliquoted and just under 2/3rds of the samples come from pre-transplant patients with PSC.

Application Deadline - 31 October 2017

Expected Decision Date - 01 December 2017

For more details visit www.pscsupport.org.uk/2017ukpscfunding .