Dear BSBMTCT member,

We hope all remains well with you and your teams and you are having a nice summer with a chance to take a break.  It’s just a brief bulletin this time.

Otherwise, as always, there remains much happening…

• Vaccination remains central to our current mission. The national multi-speciality OCTAVE Study of immune response post-COVID vaccination is still recruiting within the core and other IMPACT centres, with now over 150 patients recruited to deep immunophenotyping and serology arms. Many thanks to all centres involved. The HSCT arm for the follow on OCTAVE DUO Study is rolling out to compare responses in low and non-responders to Pfizer and Moderna booster vaccines. Our BSBMTCT COVID-19 guidelines and vaccination guidelines continue to provide up to date guidance: https://bsbmtct.org/bsbmtct-and-covid/.
• We don’t have to remind you of the importance of JACIE, and you will know that JACIE stopped all inspections in March 2020 due to the pandemic and consequent pressures on centres and restrictions on travel. There were provisions made including extension of accreditation period, but, even so, a substantial backlog has accumulated. To tackle these challenging issues, processes for remote and focussed inspection processes have been developed by the JACIE team, which will roll out progressively to provide innovative and more efficient means of delivering inspections going forward. More detailed information will appear in the EBMT https://www.ebmt.org and JACIE https://www.ebmt.org/jacie-accreditation websites and newsletters in coming weeks and we will endeavour to keep you signposted from BSBMTCT.
• We continue to develop workforce, revised BMT indications, modernising internal workings of the society and strengthening links with our key partners in ongoing projects. We are planning to recruit new members to our Executive Committee via elections soon to deliver specific and essential roles in our Society.

Our very best wishes,- we hope to see many of you soon after your well-deserved summer breaks.

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