The UK Stroke Forum (UKSF) was held between the 3rd and 5th December 2019 in Telford and saw over 1200 delegate come through the door. BIOS was represented by the Stroke and Neuro-Rehab CAG academic lead and members of the steering committee. They ran a charity stand throughout the conference which was well stocked with leaflets and information promoting orthoptics and the benefits of having orthoptists working within the stroke team. Several orthoptists made themselves known to be in attendance by visiting the BIOS stand. There was a lot of footfall to the stand with a lot of interest in the profession.
The training day on the Tuesday included visual impairment after stroke as one of the six subject areas in a world café style workshop. Participants were encourage to share experiences of multidisciplinary clinical practice and exemplary service delivery in the different subject areas, Dr Lauren Hepworth facilitated the table dedicated to visual impairment after stroke.
On the first day of the main conference got off to a start with a session titled ‘Stroke – bringing research into practice, changing policy’ which included presentations on a review the achievements of 2018/2019, the NHS long term plan and Getting It Right First Time. Claire Howard and Professor Fiona Rowe both presented posters in the vision poster session. Other posters relating to vision were presented by other members of the multi-disciplinary team.
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In the afternoon session, Dr Lauren Hepworth presented in the high scoring abstracts session. Her presentation focused on the development of a new patient reported outcome measure to assess the impact of visual impairment after brain injury. To finish off the day the Princess Margaret Lecture presented by Professor Emeritus Pippa Tyrell focused on Life after Stroke services.
The final day included a parallel session devoted to ‘vision along the pathway’ chaired by Claire Howard. This session included three speakers; Joe Dent presented on pre-hospital vision screening, Professor Fiona Rowe presented on in-hospital vision assessment and Scott Ballard-Ridley a stroke survivor who had profound stroke-related visual impairment presented his reflection on sight-loss using music in a Desert Island Discs style format to highlight some of the key moments along his journey.
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Vision after stroke appeared on the programme for each day of the conference. BIOS remains a coalition partner of the UKSF and the representatives will continue to work with the UKSF conference and steering committees to develop another interesting programme for UKSF 2020.
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Written by
Dr Lauren Hepworth
