GPs from around the country will be heading to Bradford to learn about women’s healthcare as part of a groundbreaking training programme.
The first national training course for GPs to learn outpatient hysteroscopy – the safest and most accurate way to diagnose abnormal bleeding problems – will be held in the West Yorkshire city and attended by primary care doctors from as far afield as Scotland and London.
The course is a joint venture between Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Bradford, and the British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy.
Hysteroscopies not only aid doctors in diagnosing abnormal uterine bleeding, they may also be used to understand why some women have recurrent miscarriages.
The course will enable the procedure, which involves a tiny telescope thinner than a pencil being placed into the womb, to be carried out closer to people’s homes in a GP setting. It mirrors a similar training programme launched in Bradford eight years ago to equip hospital nurses with the skills to carry out the procedure.
Sian Jones, national co-ordinator of nurse and GP hysteroscopy training, says the course “feeds into the recommendations by Lord Darzi for the provision of more care closer to home when clinically appropriate and cost effective”.
Copyright Press Association 2009
