What does the EBMT (UK) NAP stand for?
The EBMT (UK) NAP Group stands for the European Bone Marrow Transplant (United Kingdom) Nurses and Allied Professions Group. Now you can understand why we have an abbreviation!
How did nurse input into main EBMT develop?
Twenty five years ago, in 1984, the first meeting of the EBMT Nurses Group (EBMT-NG) was held in Bad Hofgastein, Austria. This meeting ran in parallel to the physicians’ meeting and had an aim to provide a platform for nurse education and sharing experiences within the field of bone marrow transplant (BMT). At this time, BMT was very much an experimental treatment and very few hospitals offered it. It was therefore important for nurses throughout Europe to have an annual meeting to share their knowledge.
How did this information first cascade on a national level?
It then became apparent that to help with communication in each European country performing BMT there should be a nominated “contact person” in each country. This contact person would be able to disseminate information sent from the EBMT-NG committee to national colleagues in their own language, between conferences.
Any other influencing factors?
At the same time, in the United Kingdom, there was another BMT forum being set up under the umbrella of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). This group had the same objectives. The RCN forum agreed there should be a link between the two groups. Further information about recent developments in the RCN BMT forum is available in under ‘latest news’.
How did the national EBMT groups develop?
As the EBMT-NG became successful at organising their annual conferences, it was important that the links with the European countries became stronger. The Netherlands and United Kingdom were the first two countries to take this forward by forming national groups that were affiliated to the EBMT-NG. The UK group wanted to provide 3 educational meetings per year, make the meetings affordable for all grades of nurses and to include allied professionals that were working within the BMT team. A committee was formed, sponsorship was obtained from six companies and the first meeting was held in Birmingham in 1997.
What were the EBMT (UK) NAP’s objectives?
From that first meeting it was agreed that the group would hold 3 educational meetings per year and for a trial period each meeting would include working parties on the following topics to see if national guidelines could be formulated.
What have the EBMT (UK) NAP achieved?
Over the past 36 meetings the committee have been able to provide: