UNCONFIRMED MINUTES OF ACC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

 

 

Held at:

Central Hall, University Of York

On:

Tuesday 24th September 2002 at 18.00

 

1

 

APOLOGIES

were received from Mike Creasy, Val Davison and Jonathan Waters

 

2

 

MINUTES OF THE PREVIUOS AGM HELD ON 11TH SEPTEMBER 2001

Approved without amendment

 

3

 

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT

Lorraine Gaunt began by reminding everyone that the minutes of the ACC Council and ETC meetings were now placed on the ACC Website thus allowing members to keep more up to date with developments within the profession.

A written version of the Chairman’s report was made available at the AGM.

(i)

Election Results

John Wolstenholme has been re-elected unopposed as Treasurer: Rob Morgan has been elected unopposed as Assistant Secretary, replacing Gordon Lowther. Newly elected ordinary members are Gordon Lowther, Tony Parkin and Nick Telford who will replace Teresa Davies, David Stevenson and Barbara Gibbons.

(ii)

President

Mr Les Butler has now completed his term of office and the ACC Council extend their thanks to him for actively carrying out this role.

Council has nominated Professor Malcolm Ferguson-Smith as the next President. The Chair cited the major achievements with which Professor Ferguson-Smith was involved and then following a request to the membership for ratification there was unanimous approval for his election.

(iii)

State Registration.

The official launch of the Health Professions Council (HPC) took place on 17th April replacing the CPSM. The HPC are however continuing to use the CPSM framework for registration for a period of not less than one year.

All details regarding the obtaining of the ACS Certificate of Attainment, which is the first step to acquiring State Registration, are available on the ACS website. The website can be accessed via a link in the ACC website, or directly at www.assclinsci.org.

(iv)

Professional Standards and Best Practice.

The Professional Standards Committee, to be chaired by Edna Maltby, has had its remit extended to include the establishment of written, evidence based performance standards for the profession. Best Practice Guidelines will be drawn up by Best Practice sub-groups of suitably qualified members of the profession and derived from strategies agreed at specific study days or other meetings devoted to specific topics of interest. These sub -groups will be created to address one topic only and will be disbanded after completion of their report.

The initial topics will be invited from all laboratories with the aim of setting in motion a minimum of three best practice meetings per annum. Priority will be given to topics of widest interest and most urgent need. Lorraine reminded the membership that this is an ideal opportunity for members of the profession to be involved in this very important exercise.

(v)

Newsletter

The Chair thanked Gordon Stephen for his years of editorship of the ACC pages of the BSHG newsletter. Gordon retired from this position during the year. The newsletter is under new editorial control, a dual partnership of Katie and Jonathan Waters – it was encouraging to see four pages devoted to ACC business in the June newsletter. Lorraine reminded the membership that Katie and Jonathan will need their help in order to keep up the increased ACC profile.

(vi)

Health and Safety.

A new document is available on the ACC website entitled ‘Prevention of Infection with Cytomegalovirus, Parvovirus, nvCJD and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Cytogenetics Laboratories ’. The Chair expressed the gratitude of the ACC to the author, Selwyn Roberts, for this document and his continuing commitment to the ACC as Safety Advisor.

(vii)

Scientific Committee

The remit of the scientific committee is to be re-considered by a small working group chaired by Mr. Rod Howell and the proposals will be put forward to Council for approval.

The Chromosome abnormality database has applied to the DoH for continuing funding and a response is expected in October.

(viii)

ETC

A review of the workforce data, together with the increase in scientific and technical staff promised by Alan Milburn, has shown that there needs to be a substantial increase in the intake of grade A trainees. A doubling of numbers has been proposed and in response to this the ETC are to review the delivery and assessment of Grade A training.

(ix)

CPA

All remaining inspections to be carried out under the current standards are scheduled to take place before June 2003 and all the outstanding genetics applications have now had assessors assigned to them.

Current inspectors and new assessors will be trained to assess to the new standards in the coming months and will also undertake an ‘Inspector Skills’ training course.

The CPA SAC in Genetics, along with the other 7 SACs are to be disbanded imminently and in December will be replaced by a single Professional Advisory Committee representing all disciplines.

(x)

NEQAS.

The NEQAS scheme remains without a scheme organizer and as a result, CPA accreditation for the scheme has now been withdrawn. The need for a scheme organizer was discussed at a workshop for Heads of Departments and some senior staff earlier this month and proposals arising from this will be discussed at the next steering committee meeting on Sept 30th. It is anticipated that the terms and conditions of the post will be revised and the post will be re-advertised soon. In the meanwhile the scheme is continuing through the efforts of the steering committee with the distribution of prenatal material planned to go out at the end of this month.

The steering committee has applied for funding of 2 pilot schemes to look at both web based distribution and interpretation and a joint pilot of FISH and PCR in collaboration with the molecular genetics scheme.

(xi)

ACC Spring Meetings

Thanks are extended to all the staff in the Cambridge laboratory for their organisation and planning which ensured the success of this year's Spring Meeting. Future meetings are 7th-8th April 2003 at the Kelvin Conference Centre, University of Glasgow and in York in Spring 2004.

Offers to host meetings in future years are urgently needed and Lorraine requested that anyone interested in hosting this important annual event in 2005 or beyond, should contact the ACC secretary.

a)

John Barber represented Genetics on a working party investigating the use of human tissue. The report ‘Transitional guidelines to facilitate changes in procedures for handling ’surplus’ and archival material from human biological samples’ was published in June and is available from the RCPath website.

b)

The Standing Committee on Clinical Science has developed a generic framework for the MRCPath examinations for all disciplines.

(xii)

Website  

The Chair expressed the thanks of the profession to Mike Creasy for maintaining and developing the website. The website has undergone a re-vamp this year and the feedback received has been extremely positive. A steering group is to be formed to ensure continuing development of the website

(xiii)

National Occupational Standards.

These are about to be piloted with training workshops being held during this and next week. Cytogenetics is one of the first pilots along with 23 other disciplines (including molecular genetics). Thanks are extended to the ACC members who have been involved in compiling the specific NOS

(xiv)

Statements and Responses

During the year the ACC has responded to a consultation document on ‘Down Syndrome Screening’ and another on the proposed ‘Structure for the Federation of Healthcare Scientists’.

Responses are currently being prepared on 4 documents:-

Funding Learning and Development (www.doh.gov.uk/fundingconsultation)

Health Professions Council (www.hpc-uk.org)

Human Bodies, Human Choices (www.doh.gov.uk/tissue)

Pathology the Essential Service (www.doh.gov.uk/pathologymodernisation)

(xv)

Participatory Workshop

A Participatory Workshop took place on the 10th September for NHS heads of departments and some of their senior colleagues. The themes for the day concentrated on Grade A training, NEQAS and Best Practice Workshops. Feedback from these will be used to inform Council and hence the profession.

(xvi)

Professional Involvement

The Chair drew the attention of the membership to the opportunities for all staff to have some professional involvement:- MRCPath study groups, Best Practice Workshops and ACC Conferences

 

4

 

ResolutionS.

(i)

Resolution 4.1

Proposal for Emeritus Fellow – Mrs. Maggie Fitchett
Proposed by Dr Mike Creasy, seconded by Dr Lorraine Gaunt.
This proposal was unanimously accepted

Proposal for Emeritus Fellow – Mr. Tony Potter
Proposed by Dr Mike Creasy, seconded by Mrs Katie Waters.
This proposal was unanimously accepted.

(ii)

Resolution 4.2

Nomination for ACC Trustee to replace Mr Tony Potter
Proposed by ACC Council – Mrs Val Davison
This proposal was unanimously accepted.

 

5

 

JLC REPORT

Una Maye presented this report on behalf of the JLC representatives.

(i)

The JLC representatives are Lyndsey Connell (Oxford), Richard Hall (London), Caroline Baird (Glasgow) and Una Maye (Liverpool). All of the representatives can be contacted by email and their addresses are on the ACC website.

(ii)

The JLC held a meeting during the ACC Spring Meeting in Cambridge. This was well attended by junior members and covered such topics as the role of Council, State Registration and MRCPath examination. The meeting proved a good forum for discussion and the JLC would like to thank all those who attended and completed a questionnaire,

(iii)

The JLC was asked by Council to survey the membership to look at the number and nature of MRCPath self-help study groups. 21 labs were canvassed of which 16 reported having some form of organised and structured self-help group. This information was distributed at the Heads of Departments and senior staff meeting on 10th Sept. A summary of which will go into the BSHG newsletter.

(iv)

Lyndsey Connell has recently joined the editorial team of the BSHG Newsletter and would welcome ideas and contributions from junior members.

 

6

 

Treasurer’s Report.

(i)

John Wolstenholme introduced the accounts and assured the membership that the accounts were ‘stable’. The annual turnover of the ACC was some £65k. There were no questions regarding the accounts.

(ii)

The adoption of the accounts was proposed by John Barber and seconded by Norman Pratt. The re-appointment of the auditors, Wilkins Kennedy was proposed by Mark McKinley and seconded by Peter Howard.

 

7

 

Correspondence.

None.

 

8

 

Matters arising from the minutes of the AGM held on 11th September 2001.

None

 

9

 

Any Other Business

(i)

John Wolstenholme informed the membership that he had now been elected onto the Board of the European Cytogenetics Association (ECA) and was currently the only UK member on the Board. He had copies of the ECA Newsletter for distribution to anyone interested.

(ii)

Lorraine Gaunt requested feedback on the possibility of transferring the AGM to during the ACC Spring meeting. This would have two advantages in that more time could be scheduled for the meeting and also it could potentially attract a greater attendance. She also requested feedback on having the Chair’s report available in hard copy format. Any comments could be emailed to either Katie Waters or Lorraine Gaunt.

 

10

 

Date of next meeting.

To be arranged, during the British Human Genetics Conference, 2003.

 

Meeting closed at 18.45