Speakers
Anthony Jackson-Crawford
Danja Schulenburg-Brand
Catherine Bailey
Rachel Still
Wales
Session Chair: Anthony Jackson-Crawford
11.00am Danja Schulenburg-Brand, A whistle stop tour of the porphyria's and Cardiff Porphyria Centre
11.30am Catherine Bailey and Rachel Still, Blood science standardisation - why bother?
12.00am Joanne Rogers, WEDINOS (Welsh Emerging Drugs and Identification of Novel Substances)
A whistle stop tour of the porphyria's and Cardiff Porphyria Centre - Danja Schulenburg-Brand
The Cardiff Porphyria Centre manages patients with porphyria in Wales, Scotland and parts of England. The fully integrated service consists of both a cutaneous and acute porphyria clinical service as well as a specialist porphyrin laboratory. In addition to discussing the role and operation of the service, we will briefly discuss the porphyrias, a group of mainly inherited conditions of haem biosynthesis, focusing on current diagnostic and management approaches.
Blood science standardisation - why bother? - Catherine Bailey and Rachel Still
All-Wales Blood Sciences standardisation started in 2010, alongside implementation of an All-Wales Pathology Laboratory Information System (WLIMS). This presentation will cover developments in standardisation in Wales, covering successes (e.g. implementation of All-Wales reference ranges and report comments for PSA), failures (e.g. documentation) and challenges (e.g. standardised telephone limits across Wales). We will also discuss preparations being undertaken for implementation of a replacement WLIMS and how the benefit of hindsight is influencing this process.
WEDINOS (Welsh Emerging Drugs and Identification of Novel Substances) - Joanne Rogers
An overview of a Welsh Public Health Harm Reduction project which provides a robust mechanism for the collection and testing of unknown/unidentified or new psychoactive substances and combinations of substances from the Welsh Analytical Toxicology Laboratory providing this analysis.
Danja Schulenburg-Brand qualified as a Chemical Pathologist in South Africa in 2009. She was appointed as a consultant Chemical Pathologist in the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Immunology, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff in 2016. She has been managing patients with porphyria and supporting the porphyrin laboratory service since 2016. She was appointed as the clinical lead for the Cardiff Porphyria Centre (endorsed by EPNET as a Porphyria Expert Clinical Centre) in 2021, managing patients with acute and cutaneous porphyria across Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom. She is a member of the British and Irish Porphyria Network.
After PhD studies in the Haematology Department at The University of Wales College of Medicine Catherine undertook Clinical Scientist in Clinical Biochemistry in Cardiff. On completion of training she took up a Clinical Scientist post in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board where she is now a Consultant Clinical Scientist and Head of Blood Sciences. Since 2014 she has worked with Rachel Still as joint All-Wales Biochemistry Standardisation Lead. Catherine is also QA advisor to Bowel Screening Wales.
Rachel started her career in Clinical Biochemistry as a Medical Laboratory Assistant in the WEQAS laboratory at Cardiff. In 2005 she became Consultant Clinical Scientist in Laboratory Medicine at Swansea (now Swansea Bay University Health Board), and in 2014 she became the joint All-Wales Biochemistry Standardisation Lead, together with Dr Catherine Bailey. Rachel is also the current ACB representative on the National Quality Assurance Advisory Panel for Chemical Pathology.
Joanne Rogers is a Consultant Clinical Scientist based at Cardiff Toxicology Laboratory, University Hospital of LLandough, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. She trained as a Clinical Scientist in Biochemistry, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists 2010. Having always had an interest in specialist services and analytical techniques, she began specialising first in Trace Elements and then Toxicology, completing a Post graduate Diploma in Medical Toxicology, Cardiff University in 2012. Joanne then went on to gain a Consultant Clinical Scientist position then head of the Clinical Toxicology Laboratory and Trace Element Service in 2017. The focus of the Toxicology laboratory is to provide a Clinical Toxicology and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring service and run the WEDINOS analytical service. Joanne is secretary for the ‘Clinical Toxicology Network UK’ and RCPath representative on the Wales National Implementation Board for Drug Poisoning and a member of the WEDINOS programme board.
