Rob Pickard was quite simply a brilliant academic urological surgeon. At the time of his retirement in 2016 he was widely considered to be the UK’s leading clinical researcher in benign urology. He trained at the Royal London Hospital, where he met his wife Caroline and graduated in 1984. He completed a postgraduate doctorate at Newcastle University in 1994 and was appointed Consultant Urological Surgeon at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, in 1996, specialising in urinary tract reconstruction. He subsequently became Senior Lecturer and then Professor of Urology at Newcastle University in 2009. 

Dear All

Firstly, a few words from our BAUS Regional Representative – Mr Mark Johnson.

Dear NEUS members

Greetings and I hope that everyone is enjoying the summer.   It seems a long time ago now but it was great to see so many people from around the region at the NEUS meeting last November.  It was one of the first face to face meeting since Covid restrictions eased and was a very welcome opportunity to catch up with friends across the North East.  I would especially like to thank Andy Moon and Debbie Wood for organising the day.  There were lots of fantastic contributions to the meeting and it was a real delight to welcome David Ralph to the North East.  He is a genuine world leader in surgical andrology and he gave a thoroughly entertaining and informative talk.  Hopefully a few of you managed to get to the BAUS Annual meeting in Birmingham this year and again it was a great chance to both gain some CPD and meet up with friends from around the country and indeed further afield.  It was also fantastic to see that the North East were well represented at the meeting with significant contributions from a variety of colleagues around the region.  Hopefully this will increase our profile nationally both as a place to train and a place to work as a consultant.  Don’t forget that registration also allows access to the presentations online if you missed anything of interest and is available through the BAUS website.

With regards to news from BAUS there are few things to mention.  I am sure that you are all aware that Jo Cresswell has now taken over as President from Tim O’Brien but you may not be aware that Ian Pearce was recently elected as Vice president.  I hope you will join me in wishing Jo every luck during her 2 years at the helm of BAUS.  I would also like to thank Tim for all of his hard work on behalf of British Urology and it is a real shame that Covid meant that he didn’t get the chance to showcase his obvious talents in a more public manner during his 2 year tenure.

BAUS is continuing to explore the possibility of developing a smartphone based App and there is a lot of work going on to make sure that it will be fit for purpose if and hopefully when it is commissioned.

The lack of a reliable supply of BCG is a major source of anxiety to our patients and whilst BAUS has played a central role in providing guidance to units it is not a comfortable situation for any of us.  BAUS have raised this issue at the highest level within the NHS but I fear that the lack of resilience in the worldwide production of BCG following the closure of the Canadian BCG Connaught production facility in 2012 means that this problem is not going to go away anytime soon.

BAUS are keen to gather information about workforce and assess our own diversity and it would be really helpful if every member could update their online profile on the MyBAUS section of the BAUS website.  This only takes a couple of minutes, and the data will be analysed in a GDPR compliant and anonymous manner.

The next BAUS Annual meeting will once again take place in Birmingham from 19th to 21st June 2023 and please put the date for the next NEUS meeting in your diary (Friday 11th November 2022 at Durham CCC).

I would like to thank our secretary Andy Moon and treasurer Matthew Shaw for all their hard work on behalf of NEUS and I am sure that we will all give a very warm welcome to Fay Kirkup who has joined the NEUS team as administrative support for the committee.

As always if you want to me to bring something to the attention of BAUS council then please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Once again have a good summer everyone and take care!

Mark Johnson; BAUS NE Regional Rep

Email:  mark.johnson27@nhs.net

ISCP update Miss Lavin

As acting TPD I would like to firstly pass on our collective well wishes to Miss O’Riordan and look forward to her upcoming return.

There are not too many changes this year with regards to ISCP but as we get used to the new curriculum,  MCRs have proved a challenge throughout specialty training  – we will discuss this more at the planned HENEE workshop on 20th September  – this looks to be a promising afternoon where we can answer any queries regarding the curriculum and address ARCP requirements going forwards – please bring your questions in readiness for the event.

We have had excellent recruitment this year and appointed 6 new ST3s and look forward to welcoming them to our fantastic regional training. A big congratulations to those who have CCT’d this year  – Tom O’Hare, Angus Luk and Kamran Haq – wishing you all a successful start to your careers.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our trainers  – you are all brilliant and much appreciated by the trainees and thank you for your continued enthusiasm during difficult times.

Vicky Lavin – acting Urology TPD

Dear All

Firstly, a few words from our BAUS Regional Representative – Mr Mark Johnson.

Dear NEUS members

Welcome everyone! For those of you who don’t know I took over as BAUS Regional Rep last summer. I have some big shoes to fill and I would like to thank David Thomas for his sterling work both as regional representative and Trustee. It is a great shame that we could not meet up last year either in Birmingham for BAUS or in Durham for the NEUS meeting, but I am hopeful that we will get the chance to meet up in person this November at NEUS. I hope that most of you will register for BAUS 2021, which will once again be a virtual meeting and has a Global Urology theme with a lot of international input.

The BAUS registries have now closed and the focus has switched to more focussed, and time limited, audits. The Audit Steering Group at BAUS is also working closely with GIRFT and NCIP (National Consultant Information Programme) to create an online platform that will generate individual activity data and patient outcome benchmarks to replace the old registries and facilitate reflection and appraisal of our clinical activity. The current plan is for urology to be a vanguard specialty.

The Mesh pause continues and, since April 2021, Newcastle has officially been recognised by NHS England as a Mesh removal centre under the leadership of Karen Brown (Urogynaecologist RVI) and Chris Harding (also BAUS mesh lead). Finally I would like to thank Ali Rogers for all his hard work as NEUS secretary and wish Andy Moon the best of luck as he takes over in that role. I hope that we can all get behind Andy to support the NEUS meetings this year and in the future. I am also very grateful to Deb Wood for her continued administrative input into NEUS and to Matt Shaw for his work as treasurer.

Please put the NEUS meeting date in your diaries (26th November 2021). The programme looks great and let’s hope that the meeting will go ahead face to face and that we can get back together in person as friends and colleagues to catch up with the news and provide that vital peer group support that we all need to survive in these sometimes challenging times. In the meantime enjoy the summer and I hope that you all get the chance to get away somewhere nice for a holiday (even if it is in the UK!). If there any issues that you would like me to raise with BAUS then please contact me.

Best wishes

Mark Johnson;

BAUS NE Regional Rep Email: mark.johnson27@nhs.net

ISCP update Miss O’Riordan

Dear all, Starting September 2021 we are moving to the new ISCP curriculum for our surgical trainees, apart from those in their final year.

There are significant changes coming. The idea is that there will be more emphasis on outcomes and competencies rather than numbers. The most notable one is that the clinical supervisor will be responsible for arranging and compiling the ‘Multiple Consultant Report’ (MCR). This will be a report created after discussion with other clinical supervisors about the trainees progress.

The terminology will be changing significantly and you will need to familiarise yourself with this. Therefore I urge you all to:

1. Look at the Trial MCR in your trainees portfolio now, and go through one with them to get an understanding of how it will work and what will be expected. It is quite a detailed report.

2. If you look at the FAQ section of the ISCP the first question that comes up is ‘What are the key changes?’ And if you open that up and click on the links it sends you to lots of different youtube videos that are very helpful

3. BAUS have run some webinars so these are very helpful and probably still available through your BAUS membership.

4. The role of the educational supervisor is relatively unchanged.

So good luck with the changes. Like everyone we need to embrace change and see it as a force for good or we end up like the dinosaurs!

I look forward to giving you a brief update at NEUS this autumn but please do not wait until then. Any questions or issues please do not hesitate to contact me at a.oriordan@nhs.net and thank you all for your ongoing support of your wonderful trainees. Stay safe.

Anna O’Riordan- Urology TPD