CGS Officers and Council
Officers:
President: Dr Frances Flinter
Vice-President: Dr Alan Fryer
Secretary General: Dr Elisabeth Rosser
Treasurer: Dr Amanda Collins
Conference Organiser: Dr Daniela Pilz
Academic Vice-President: Prof Judith Goodship
Click here to download a full list of
members of the CGS Council.
The CGS Constitution can be downloaded
here
Click here to go to information about
CGS Working Groups & Subcommittees.
Minutes of the Clinical Genetics Society Council Meeting.
Wednesday 11th
March 2009, Institute of Child Health, London.
Present:
Alan Fryer (President), Frances Flinter (Vice President and
President Elect), Elisabeth Rosser (Secretary), Sahar Mansour (Conference
Organiser), Mandy Collins (Treasurer), Dorothy Trump, Lily Islam, Emma Hobson,
Angie Brady, Daniela Pilz, Sarah Smithson, Rob Hastings (Trainee
Representative). Susan Holder Judith Goodship (Academic Vice President)
In attendance:
Adam Shaw (Website Coordinator), Michael Wright (GENCAG
representative), Susan Huson (Newsletter Editor), John Dean (Chair of Clinical
Governance Committee),
1. Welcome and Apologies for
Absence:
Apologies were received from
Carol Gardiner, Tessa Homfray, Gareth Evans and Anneke Lucassen. Rob Hastings
was welcomed to his first meeting.
2. New Members:
Policy for accepting new members
was discussed. Most members are proposed and seconded by existing members of
CGS. When this is not the case, it was agreed that a CV plus a reference from
someone from a recognised Genetics Society would be acceptable.
3. Changes in CGS Officers:
Retiring members of council were
thanked for their contributions. The website to be updated with new committee members and roles.
4. New CGS Representatives
on Other Committees:
A document had been circulated
5. Minutes of the CGS
Council Meeting held on October 28th:
These had been circulated.
Corrections were made to the spelling of some names.
Page 4 Point 7: The last
sentence of the fourth paragraph should read; “the initial remit of the academic
subcommittee included advising on how to link in with the NIHR research networks
but this role had been superseded by the establishment of clinical research
networks.”
Page 6, point 11b should read,
“BSL translated DVDs”..
6. Matters Arising from
Previous Minutes not Otherwise on the Agenda:
- Website protocol – dealt
with
- Consultant list – will be
resent.
- Cardiac genetics – Paul
Brennan is going to come to the June Meeting to discuss cardiac genetics.
7. National Clinical Service
Developments:
- IT issues. The submitted
report was accepted without further discussion.
- 18 weeks. Local
agreements can be set in place such as not accepting cancer referrals
without details of the family history. Commissioning pathways must not be
used to obstruct referrals. Six week diagnostic wait refers to the time
between offering the test to the patient and making it available, not the
time to produce the results. The 18 weeks wait applies to clinical genetics.
- Telephone consultations
can be counted as activity if they replace appointments but should be used
with caution as the National tariff for telephone consultations is £24.00.
There is a new group set-up in
Scotland, the e-Genetics Group. John Dean sits on this.
Report from the Lead
Clinicians group.
A report had been circulated.
This was not discussed further.
Quality metrics indicators.
A report had been circulated.
The measures agreed at the last meeting have been submitted. The RCP is
supportive in assisting in selecting and developing appropriate measures.
Developing standard for
health records
A report had been submitted and
was not discussed further
8. Revalidation:
The GMC have suggested a framework based on the four
domains
Domain
1 – Knowledge, Skills and Performance
Domain
2 – Safety and
Quality
Domain 3 – Communication, Partnership and Teamwork
Domain 4 – Maintaining Trust
The RCP is looking at expected
standards and how to measure and demonstrate them.
9. Academic Subcommittee:
A report had been submitted.
Three concerns were raised:
not all academic trainees had or knew who their
educational and/or clinical supervisors were. ACFs sometimes being asked to do
additional clinical work in order to meet target waiting times.
there are no good records for OOP trainees. It was pointed out that the SACs should have
records for this.
The appointment of new ACFs and ACLs is not a rolling programme so for future appointments centres can apply
even if they did not previously have a post.
10. Ongoing Initiatives:
Links with
developing services outside the UK.
Applications for next year’s
Scholarship were opened this month. For 2010 the attachment will be for the
BSHG rather than for CGS in Amsterdam.
Prenatal
Genetics Report.
Has been ratified by the
RCOG and Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society and is on the website.
11. Clinical Governance
Subgroup
Guidelines for guidelines are
now on the website
The haemochromatosis survey has
been sent and a poor response received.
The majority of the discussion
was about the present and future remit of the clinical governance subcommittee.
The original remit was very
brief. The new remit has been drafted to try to clarify the role and
constitution of the subgroup. The issue was discussed at some length. The term
clinical governance is very broad. It may be helpful to be more specific and use
terms such as patient safety, clinical effectiveness and quality measures.
It was proposed that a survey is
undertaken to find out if there is a lead in each department, how incidents are
reported and whether a department has been involved in any medicolegal cases.
There was also some discussion
about the membership of the committee. There should be a fixed term of
membership, generally three years and that this should be staggered initially so
that not everybody changes at once..
John Dean was thanked for all
his hard work. After discussion the following decisions were made: there would
be a core group consisting of interested people and led by a council member;
Sarah Smithson agreed to take this role on in September working alongside John
Dean. It was agreed that there should be a limited membership. There needs to be
effective communication directly with nominated clinical governance leads in
each department. There should be representatives from the AGNC and from the
clinical genetics trainees on the committee.
A model will be presented at the
June council meeting.
12a, Trainee report
This had been circulated. There was some discussion as to
whether council was the most appropriate place to discuss the issue of
bullying. It was felt most appropriate for the SAC to discuss the issue and the
President offered to raise this with the lead clinicians.
CGS cannot offer funding for a trainee day.
12b, SAC report
The discussion focused on KBA.
An examination overlapping with MRCPath Part I, would cost
less than setting up a new stand-alone system. It was agreed that, although not
perfect, this was the most practical option. Council agreed that the CGS
Treasurer, an academic committee representative, a trainee represenatative and a
patient representative should be included in the working party to develop KBA.
12c, Manpower issues updatee
A report had been.submitted. It was noted that academic
posts vary in how they are paid and the number of clinical sessions worked and
some consultants had more than 10 Pas. This causes some difficulties in
performing a workforce survey. It was felt best to try and record numbers in
WTEs, where possible.
13, Reports from other committees
a. JCMG Reports had been circulated. It was highlighted
that NCG funding often does not include wider genetic issues such as family
screening by molecular analysis.
13b. GENCAG report. No relevant new information needed to
be discussed.
13c. UKGTN working groups. A report was circulated. No
further discussion.
13d. BSHG council. A report had been submitted. The
President highlighted the decision to postpone the business manager post and the
financial savings of moving the BSHG conference to Warwick. No further
discussion was held.
13e. Cancer Genetics Group. The report was tabled. No
further discussion was held.
14, Budget
A report had been circulated
A deficit for 2007/2008 is expected. Differential
subscriptions would be very hard to administer and it was agreed that a £10
increase in subscription would be proposed at the AGM.
15, CGS regional network. Nothing to report..
16, Website Adam was thanked for all his hard work.
17, CGS Conferences Nothing to report.
18, Carter lecturer for 2010. The nomination
committee will meet to discuss this.
19, Genetic testing of children. Nothing to report
20, Any other business.
There had been a request from the ACCEA Committee for a
list of the six most highly rated specialist genetic journals in terms of their
clinical impact.
Date of next meeting: Monday.
22nd June
Summaries of the minutes of CGS council meetings are archived below:
October 2008
June 2008
January 2008 Council Away Day
June 2007
March 2007
November 2006
June 2006
February 2006
[For further information and contact information, please contact the CGS
office at cgs@bshg.org.uk ] |