NSGCCE Awareness Day 2009 Update

An event aimed at educating both carers and healthcare professionals about eczema was held in the postgraduate building of the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham on Thursday 17th September 2009 under the joint auspices of the Nottingham Support Group for Carers of Children with Eczema (NSGCCE) and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Stands included Current Research from the Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology (CEBD). The CEBD recently received funding from the National Institute of Health Research for a 5 year study into several skin diseases, including eczema. Joanne Chalmers, Study Manager for the BEEP Study (Barrier Enhancement for Eczema Prevention) and Helen Nankervis also from the CEBD attended. The BEEP study will be looking to see if the use of emollients from birth will prevent eczema in babies and Helen is working on updating an important systematic review of clinical trials for eczema.

The National Eczema Society (NES) was represented by John Fuller who came up from London on the day. John gave out all sorts of NES literature aimed at helping eczema sufferers.

Amanda Roberts, a parent, was promoting the N.I.C.E guidelines for eczema, CG57. Amanda has an interest here because she, along with Sandra Lawton, was on the committee assigned the task of drawing up the guidelines. Hard copies were made available to take away along with hard copies of the most popular Patient Information Leaflets (PIL’s) from the NSGCCE.

Elizabeth Buckely and June Jennings, Paediatric Dermatology nurses, from the childrens dermatology department, did a great job looking after the emollient stand giving demonstrations on how to apply and use emollients effectively. This proved to be a popular focal point for all those attending.

Colin Gibb, another parent, demonstrated the website and the latest enhancements he has made to it (www.nottinghameczema.org.uk). It is hoped that we will be able to launch the most recent innovation, video podcasts, before Christmas. This will fit very well alongside our last major upgrade, the audio podcasts.

During each half of the day there were 2 interactive sessions. Colin Gibb and Amanda Roberts kicked them off by giving a brief overview of some of the practicalities of living with eczema and this was followed up by an open forum hosted by Sandra Lawton, Nurse Consultant and Dr Jane Ravenscroft, Consultant Dermatologist.

Over the course of the day there was a steady stream of people, patients, parents and health care professionals, all keeping us busy in one way or another. They came to Nottingham from all over the local area (Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and further afield from Chester). The day was a huge success with an over whelming enthusiasm and buzz to share knowledge and experiences of working or living with eczema. As a result of this early success we are discussing the possibility of running it again next year. Watch this space.

Launch of the NSGCCE Tool Bar

We have just launched our latest free service. A toolbar for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari web browser users. By clicking the “Download Toolbar” button on our website you can install a toolbar that will give you instant access to our Podcasts, Newsfeed’s and Twitter services without being on site plus a lot lot more. Its available now and free. You can activate/deactivate it, install/uninstall it or add/remove components. Its under your total control.

Patient Information Leaflet for Stress and Eczema

We have just launched the latest in our series of Patient Information Leaflets. The latest PIL is about Stress and Eczema. It is available now and can be downloaded free. Just go to the “Information Leaflets” page and click on “Stress and Eczema” for your copy

NSGCCE Awareness Day 2009

Just a reminder that our Eczema Awareness day is fast approaching. It will be held on 17th September, 2009 10-12 noon and 1pm-3pm at the The Post Graduate Education Centre, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospital. Its going to be a fantastic day for all who attend and with access to the professionals how can you not come. Thats a rare treat in itself. If you need to know how to find us then the directions are available on on our Awareness Day page or if you want further information you can get in touch via our Contact Us page. If you can support us by displaying our poster, that would be most appreciated and is downloadable as a pdf file from the Awareness Day page. Click the link at the top of the page. We look forward to seeing you there.