BIRMINGHAM NEC CONVENTION MAY 2008.

The Nottingham awareness team attended the two day NEC in May 2008. The Nottingham team raised the funds to pay for the event and produced the literature to hand to the medical professionals for their specific profession, this year we were fortunate to have the FMAUK medical pack to hand out to the professionals and the FMAUK flyers to hand to the professionals for use in their waiting/reception rooms of their various departments, FMAUK also donated a huge box of their pens with the FMAUK Logo/website/PO Box No, needless to say these were very popular with the delegates at the convention! We would like to express our appreciation to FMAUK for the inclusion of their literature and merchandise.

Our Honorary Group Member, Dr. Kim Lawson, B Tech (Hons)., Ph.D, Senior Lecturer, Biomedical Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University kindly produced a 4 page flyer on fibromyalgia for us to hand to the medical professionals we would like to express our thanks to Dr. Lawson for his continual support.  

The two day event was attended by 5,440 medical professionals, the geographical area covered by the delegates attending the event:

London 8%.

South East 14%.

South West 7%.

Midlands 38%.

East Midlands 11%.

Northern Ireland 0.5%.

North East 6%.

North West 8%.

East Anglia 3%.

Wales 3%.

Scotland 1%.

Europe 5%.

The delegates were:

GP’s and Doctors 10%.

PCT, SHA and Trust Managers 6%.

Public Health Directors .5%.

Primary Care, Community Nurses 7%.

Midwives 19%.

School, University Nurses 3%>

Hospice/Care Homes Nurse/Staff 3%.

Other Nurses 3%.

Physiotherapists 12%.

Speech and Language Therapists 4%.

Podiatrists/Chiropodists 10%>

Paramedics, Academics, Government, Royal College  Opticians, Scientists, Technician 5%.

Pharmacists 2%.

Practice Managers 3%.

Health Promotion 5%.

Health Visitors 4%.

District Nurses 1%.

Dieticians/Nutritionists 2%.

Mental Health/CPN 2%.

Pscychologist/Psch 5%.

Occupational Therapists 2%.

Other AHPs .5%.

Press 5%.

Our colleagues, the joint leaders of the Burton-on-Trent & Swadlincote Fibromyalgia Group, Jan Mayfield and Judith Wilkinson, attended the event for the second year running and our colleague, the Chair of the Coventry group, attended the event to help us engage with the delegates. We would like to say thank you to them for their support and hard work during the event.      

As always the preparation took many weeks of planning and hard work but the reward is the opportunity to engage with many professionals over the two days and raise awareness of our condition. Many delegates visited our stand for the first time with many declaring how they are unaware of how important it is that they have knowledge of fibromyalgia in order to give the best possible treatment and care for their patients who have this condition. The feedback was that education/information about our condition is still not made available to them and they receive no training on fibromyalgia, most report a negative attitude to fibromyalgia within the NHS with health care workers under the illusion that fibromyalgia is a few aches and pains!  The professionals who told us they have fibromyalgia themselves and are still managing to remain in their work reported problems with their employers with their employers failing to understand the condition and their difficulty in trying to remain working.

We have now attended 5 NEC’s, 2005, two in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and our impression is that there is little improvement in the awareness of fibromyalgia, this feedback is very disappointing, however, the delegates attending the NEC are really interested in talking about fibromyalgia and very pleased to have information provided for the diagnosis and treatment of fibromyalgia plus insight into understanding the full impact of the syndrome and its associated symptoms, this is all positive with the delegates who have spoken to us in previous years pleased to see that we are undeterred in continuing our campaign to raise awareness of fibromyalgia to medical professionals. We are looking to expand the NEC for 2009 with a specific fibromyalgia lecture for professionals delivered by professionals on both days, delivering our message and keeping up the momentum is of prime importance.  

Christine, Chair of the group and Awareness Co-ordinator.