It is our pleasure to invite you to a webinar hosted by The Safer Healthcare Biosafety Network titled "Safer Handling of Hazardous Medicinal Products: Frontline Pressures, Education and Culture" on Thursday 25 June, 12:00 to 13:00 BST/GMT+1. This webinar will bring together frontline clinical expertise and academic insight to examine the growing pressures facing healthcare workers who handle hazardous medicinal products, the guidance available to protect them, and the education and cultural change needed to make safer practice a reality. This session is intended for nurses, pharmacists, oncology healthcare professionals, safety leads, educators and policymakers with an interest in the safe handling of hazardous medicinal products and the systemic changes needed to better protect the healthcare workforce.
Sign up here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/JFCGmbdVSsiSv1D4TtbgYQ
Presenters:
- Sam Toland, Nurse Consultant in Cancer Care and Lead SACT Nurse, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust
- Alison Simons, Senior Lecturer in Nursing and Midwifery, Birmingham City University
Both presenters were featured on the powerful new documentary from Channel 4 on the issue of occupational exposure to HMPs in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-1xjROBwks
Sam Toland will draw on her experience leading chemotherapy services to examine how the clinical landscape has changed for nurses handling hazardous medicinal products. She will explore the exponential growth in treatment volumes, the increasing complexity of SACT regimes, and the implications of the growing shift towards subcutaneous administration — a route that eases capacity pressures but introduces new and harder-to-control exposure risks for nursing staff.
Alison Simons will address the policy and practice environment in which these clinical pressures play out. She will examine the current state of UK guidance on the safe handling of HMPs, the absence of effective enforcement mechanisms, and what meaningful improvements to education and training look like in practice. She will also consider the cultural barriers that continue to prevent safer practice taking hold across healthcare settings, even where guidance exists.