Dear BSBMTCT member,

We hope all is well with you.

At least for the time being, there appears to be now some light at the end of this dark tunnel we’ve been in and most units are aiming to restore normal activity. Vaccination has been an important part of progress and, as we write, around 34 million have now received their vaccinations in the UK.

Our BSBMTCT COVID-19 guidelines have been updated on the 18^th April and the vaccination guidelines developed by the Vaccination Sub-committee will soon be updated to reflect some recent changes. All our COVID-19 related documents are available on our website: https://bsbmtct.org/bsbmtct-and-covid/. The national multi-speciality OCTAVE Study of immune response post-COVID, vaccination is now recruiting within the core and other IMPACT centres.

Otherwise, there remains much on the ‘to do’ list…

• The next CTC Meeting is on Tuesday 4^th May 11-3pm via Teams, invites and agendas have been sent out and we look forward to discussing new proposals and existing retrospective studies and surveys  on the day.
• We will be holding the Annual Scientific Meeting on May 12^th, 2021 more information can be found here https://bsbmtct.org/events/bsbmtct-scientific-day/. Our Annual BSBMTCT Education Day will be held on November 3^rd 2021. More information to follow.
• The next EBMT Benchmarking reports will be made available in June, the BSBMTCT registry has offered to support centres with this process of gaining access and supporting centres with interpretation and data support. In order that the BSBMTCT registry can gain access to these reports, all Programme Directors must send an email to Benchmarking@ebmt.org explicitly giving BSBMTCT consent to access these reports. The deadline for data submission for the next EBMT Benchmarking reports is the 14^th May.
• A new document called “Safe Transfusions in Transplant Recipients” has been added to the website. Produced in conjunction with SHOT, this document incorporate a checklist and some guidance to help reduce transfusion errors and optimise safety of transfusions in transplant recipients. More information can be found here: https://bsbmtct.org/safe-transfusions-in-transplant-recipients-document-now-available/
• In the next months, we will also be looking for replacements for a few of our Executive Committee who will have reached the end of their term of office. We will inform you when these opportunities become available.
• Workforce, revised BMT indications, delivering accreditation remotely, modernising internal workings of the society and strengthening links with our key partners remain ongoing projects.

We hope that you all stay safe and well, mentally and physically. The BSBMTCT will do its best to maintain high levels of support and direction for our community, and help each other deliver our treatments to our vulnerable patient population as the pandemic moves into the ‘endemic’ phase.

Our very best wishes,

John Snowden, Kim Orchard, Fiona Dignan, Deborah Richardson, Eduardo Olavarria, & Julia Lee