5/5/2004
DoH Announced the Results of Two Genetics White Paper initiatives:
"1. NHS Genetics Education & Development Centre.
This centre will have a key role in facilitating and catalysing education in
genetics for non-genetic specialist healthcare professionals in the NHS. One of
its main tasks will be to work with professional bodies and established
educational organisations to get genetics onto syllabuses and curricula for
healthcare staff from undergraduate through to CPD.
We have announced today that a team led by Professor Peter Farndon at Birmingham Womens' Healthcare Trust has successfully tendered to provide the NHS genetics education and development centre. A copy of the press release follows at the end of this e-mail. We look forward to working closely with Peter and his team on this exciting initiative.
2. Service Development Initiative.
This opportunity to bid for funds for 2 year pilot projects incorporated the
commitments to support developments to bring the benefits of genetics into
mainstream clinical areas and to support initiatives working in primary care. We
received 26 applications. Few were concerned with work in primary care and we
will be considering further how to encourage developments in this area. An
evaluation panel considered the applications carefully and decided that 10 of
the bids should be funded. The full list of successful bids is below. Results
were sent out to all applicants last Friday and all bidders have been offered
feedback." Diane Paine, Business Manager NHS Genetics team
14/3/2002
Thanks to a suggestion by Dr Fred Kavalier (Primary Care Geneticist at
Guy's), the PIL forum goes live.
This is an area where members can post clinically useful documents (patient
information leaflets, consent forms etc) for comments and exchange.
16/1/2002
At a conference (Genetics and Health - A Decade of Opportunity) in London to
discuss the future of genetics in UK medicine prior to the publication of a
green paper, Health Secretary, Alan Milburn announced
(also reported by the BBC):
 | Two new National Reference Laboratories, each receiving £500,000 annually, will be in Salisbury and Manchester |
| Genetic Knowledge Parks - following an extra £5m contribution from DTI, to go with the £10m from DoH, there will be 6 GKPs at Oxford, Cambridge, London (GOSH, UCL & St George's), North West (Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster), Newcastle, and Wales. |
1/5/2001
Genetics and insurance -
| Human Genetics Commission (HGC) recommends 3 year moratorium on requirement to disclose results of genetic tests by insurance companies on policies under £500,000. |
| UKFGI, ABI and BSHG release joint statement on the insurance and genetic research. |
| Reported by the BBC and Financial Times. |
| Read BSHG's original statement on this issue from 1998. |
19/4/2001
Health Secretary, Alan Milburn announces
(also reported by the BBC):
| New government investment in Medical Genetics, with a doubling of clinical and laboratory staff, and plans for 2 new laboratories, and 4 new "knowledge parks". |
| Proposed moratorium on use of genetic test results by insurance companies. |
See here for full text of speech.
10/10/2000
The Association of Genetic Nurses and Counsellors unveiled their new
website.
13/10/2000
The Genetics And Insurance Committee (GAIC) of the
UK Department of Health, which includes Professors Di Donnai and Sandy Raeburn, announced
today that it would recommend allowing insurance companies to use results of
genetic tests for Huntington disease. The announcement was covered by the press
- on the front page of the Daily Mail ( "Insurers get go-ahead for gene testing."),
at the BBC website
("Genetic test first for UK"), and in the BMJ (full
text available).
13/9/2000
The role of BSHG webmaster has been passed from Shane McKee to Phil
Zack. Shane has done a splendid job of building the website from scratch over
the last 3 years, and will be a hard act to follow!
11-13/09/2000
This year's British Human Genetics Conference
(2000) in York.
30/05/2000
The Clinical Genetics Society consultation document on the Role
of a Clinical Geneticist is now available on this site. Your comments
are most welcome.
22/02/2000
Towards Clinical Governance in Clinical
Genetic Practice
is a report of a working group of the
British Society of Human Genetics, aiming to set out how the principles of
Clinical Governance can be applied to the specialty. The text of this report
will soon be available on this website.
16/02/2000
The BACR announced a special conference: Seventh
Workshop on the Cytogenetics and Genetics of Solid Tumours on 7th-10th Sept
2000. The
conference was principally about the use of molecular cytogenetics for the study
of solid tumours. The use of micro-arrays were also featured at this meeting.