Autumn 2023 Nuclear Medicine Special Interest Group

24 October 2023 10:00 — 11:00 (1 hour)

Agenda

  1. Previous meeting minutes and actions arising
  2. Regional information gathering exercise
  3. Patient letters
  4. PET-CT
  5. AOB

Minutes

NUCLEAR MEDICINE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP

TUES 24th OCTOBER 2023

PRESENT: Ioan Prata, Kate Clough, Jaqueline Wilkinson, Paul Wakelin, Heather Wright, Dimitri Lots, David McDermott, Hesh Panditaratne

PREVIOUS ACTIONS

Directory of regional departments with brief summary of examinations performed and some contact details. Would help when needing to redirect patient if departments need to. Info to be sent to KC

REGIONAL INFO

Survey been sent to gather info on nuclear med from BNMS

PATIENT LETTERS

Debs Pushon was looking to standardise patient info on bone scans.

Suggestion that we need to define the basics that need to be on the letter/patient information. This can then be adapted by each department to meet their needs. This may be more appropriate that developing full information for each test

Trust sign off may be a hurdle to this as information format is often changed during this process

Ideas: departmental contact details, radiation information, basic description of test, QR code with link to information or QR code with link to patient feedback

To swop ideas on Teams chat

PET-CT

National PET-CT contract is ending.

There will be other options but there is a feeling that there is a lot of uncertainty about the direction to take.

Financially difficult to take on a PET-CT service due to costs.

Trusts finding it difficult to have a long term plan for the service, most are managing short term only.

Should we have a regional view of what we would like for the future? Where would we want to be in 10 years?

AOB

Technician led cardiac stressing service-does anyone other then NLAG have this service and what stress agents are used?? Anyone use Regadenoson?

BTHFT use adenosine as main agent, rarely they use dobutamine. Also have smart ECG machine that updates staff on any changes

CHFT use Regadenoson and have done for a number of years. Have had very few minor vasovagal reactions but nothing more. BP is monitors pre procedure and patient with high or low readings are rebooked. In recent months have stopped asking patients to withhold beta-blockers as this caused problems for patients

There are some courses available which would allow AHP’s to be trained in basic ECG interpretation. Some are run by local institutions (we believe Leeds University runs one) and some are available virtually. This would provide confidence for staff when running lists.