New webcast for hepatitis receives accreditation by RCN Centre

May 5 2014

Roche: The ‘Confronting the silent epidemic: clinical innovation forum’ webcast endorsed by HCV Action, British Liver Trust and the European Liver Patients Association, is now available for healthcare professionals (HCPs) to view on-demand. The first-of-its kind webcast for hepatitis has been awarded accreditation by the RCN Centre for Professional Accreditation, allowing participants to view the webcast and contribute to their continuing professional development.

The webcast provides a forum for sharing best practice cases from four innovative testing and treatment services across the UK. The expert faculty draw on their experiences and detail how they have overcome specific challenges and delivered tangible outcomes to benefit people across the UK for people suffering with hepatitis.

Margaret Walker, CEO, European Liver Patients Association commented: “It is encouraging to see the creative ways in which UK services are tackling the challenges around hepatitis. The detailed content of the webcast provides innovative how-to examples on how to improve patient care. The online tool provides first-hand key learnings from the experts on their approaches to service design, which emphasises that hepatitis management must be a priority in order to tackle one of the greatest public health challenges.”The webcast outlines a range of examples from the launch of a pioneering oral swab test in local hepatitis C clinics, which helped tackle the cultural stigma attached to hepatitis among the South Asian community in Reading to the development of a prison-based hepatitis clinic in Edinburgh. Overall, the webcast provides first-hand, ‘how-to’ advice and advocates the development of innovative, localised approaches to service designs to improve patient experience by putting them at the heart of all decisions.

The webcast, as part of the wider ‘Hepatitis Awareness Leading Outcomes’ (HALO) initiative comes at a crucial time following significant concerns the impact the NHS reforms have had on hepatitis treatment services. The webcast also follows the publication of the HALO report, ‘Confronting the silent epidemic: a critical review of hepatitis C management in the UK’ last year, which highlighted the poor state of UK hepatitis services compared to Europe and provides practical steps to service innovation to help reduce the burden of the disease.