The two midland regional ANSA meetings were held on consecutive days 30th June and 1st July and were a great success.

The West Midland session was held at the Hilton Puckrup Hall in Tewkesbury, which provided a beautiful setting for the day. We kicked off with the ever-entertaining consultant haematologist, Dr Chris Fegan from Heartlands and Solihull Hospital who gave a brilliant overview of anaemia; so good we had to haul him off in the end to stop the barrage of questions aimed his way.

Amgen medical affairs officer Dr Catherine Singfield went through a brief history of EPO and was followed by excellent presentations on iron management and practical anaemia management given by Amgen’s nurse advisors Heather Senior and Sandra Wilson.

We were lucky enough to have Dr Donal O’Donoghue to give us a thought provoking review of the National Framework for Renal services. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to get to Derby Football Ground for the East Midlands session but the current president of BRS, Dr Steve Smith very kindly stepped into his place and gave an equally good session using Donal’s slides. He was followed by Heartland’s renal dietician, Yvonne Bradburn with an interesting insight into the effects of malnutrition on EPO response.

The highlight of both days was provided by Hope hospital CAPD patient Tony Ward and his wife. Tony’s emotional yet inspirational story took us through the radical change in life from professional mountain guide to PD patient, traumatically failed transplant and back to the mountains once more. It is a story every renal patient, carer and health care worker should have the chance to hear.

Finally both Sandra and I did our bits to tell everyone about ANSA. Thank you Sandra for doing the work on that one.

Both days evaluated very well. The words ‘excellent’ and ‘fantastic’ were used on most forms with only one negative statement “too much anaemia”…Odd on an ‘anaemia’ study day which included both NSF and nutrition plus Tony’s general story about the challenges faced by renal patients as a whole; still you always get one!

I have to say that by the end of the second day, I for one was exhausted, but very happy with the way both days went. Thanks to John Dyster from Amgen for his help in arranging and supporting both events. I hope he will be able to the same next year when we plan to do one big event in Birmingham covering both regions.

Pat Sirrett Regional Chair ANSA West Midlands
Patricia.Sirrett@uhb.nhs.uk
Tel 07798668902

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