BNMS Committee update from the Professional Standards Committee (PSC)

The BNMS Professional Standards Committee (PSC) is the Society’s engine room for quality and consistency. It promotes, supports and monitors the development and introduction of professional standards pertaining to the practise of Nuclear Medicine. The committee liaises and collaborates with other professional bodies and organisations around education resources, quality management and governance processes. Reporting to the BNMS Council, the PSC brings together clinicians, clinical scientists, technologists/radiographers, radiopharmacists, nurses and patient representatives to define, update and promote standards across our specialty.

At the heart of the PSC role is the management of guidelines. We coordinate a rolling programme that develops, reviews and publishes both clinical and non clinical guidance—from imaging and therapy procedures to service operations and equipment tendering tools.  The committee ensures every document is evidence based, practical and scheduled for periodic review. Recent examples include UK PET standards, gastric emptying, DPD for cardiac amyloidosis and renal cortical scintigraphy, with active work under way in areas such as VQ in pulmonary hypertension, hepatobiliary scintigraphy, GFR and technologist support. Should you have a topic or procedure that would benefit from a new guideline then please sent an email to psc@bnms.org.uk.

Workforce is a focus for the PSC and recent guidelines have been published in the form of Scientific Support for Nuclear Medicine. A technologist taskforce group is currently working on similar guidelines for Technologist Support.

PSC also supports departments to evidence and improve quality through BNMS QUANUM, our organisational audit aligned with wider European programmes. If you feel that you service may benefit from this then please contact audits@bnms.org.uk. We have been running departmental audit for many years, which concentrates on equipment, workload and workforce across the UK, providing data that services and commissioners can use for planning.  Reports are available on the BNMS website and presented at the Spring meetings.

Patient information resources for local adaptation are held on the website in form of information leaflets. These are available to patients and carers and other interested parties to help them understand Nuclear Medicine procedures.

The PSC meets quarterly. Membership is for a typical three year term, and we seek a balanced, multi professional group. Vacancies are advertised via BNMS channels—if you’re interested in contributing to guidelines, audit or workforce initiatives, we’d love to hear from you!