Here's a report from RITA MODY who travelled with fellow committee members to Hungary in November for the 2008 International Travel Insurers Conference.

Flying the flag for UK flight nurses at ITIC Budapest 2008

This conference is now an integral part of the travel industry and it draws a diverse mix of delegates from all areas of travel insurance.

We were originally invited to attend ITIC 2007 in Milan, but unfortunately at the last minute weather conditions and striking Italian airport workers meant that we were unable to go and many other conference speakers also had trouble getting there.

No such disasters occurred in 2008! Caroline Carter, Alan Sheward and I were able to be in Budapest for two days of the four-day conference.

The agenda always offers delegates a host of subjects. Presentations this time covered issues within the travel insurance, air ambulance, general assistance and assistance medicine sectors, and all played a key part in the four days, with separate rooms for each of the specialist areas.

Hit the ground running

We arrived the afternoon prior to the start and were able to attend the welcome function and see the opening speeches from Ian Cameron, Managing Director, Voyageur Publishing and Event Ltd, who each year host ITIC. Then it was onto networking for the evening.

IFNA was on the agenda for day one of the conference. Alan presented "Competencies: an integrated career and competency framework for in-flight nurses" and we had also invited two other speakers to the conference:

Mark Popplestone, Head of Medical Services at Virgin Atlantic Airways, spoke on "Passengers with medical problems: those we know about and those we don't."
Mark McCrum addressed the subject of global etiquette.

Alan focused on the IFNA's work over the last few years to set up three levels of measured competency of a UK in-flight nurse. These competencies are in place, published by the RCN. He discussed the different levels of competency that an employer (or contractor) of flight nurses in the UK should expect and that flight nurses should work towards.

His presentation also covered our links with educational facilities, assistance companies and the RAF. There were questions from the floor on European Working Time Directives and how these could affect assistance companies' use of flight nurses - should each repatriation lasting over 12 hours have two crews?

A packed programme

"Clinical education and research reduces costs and liabilities", Dr Terry Martin's presentation, tied in nicely with Alan's, discussing the need for standardised education for all medical professionals. There were clinical presentations in areas such as "Sepsis: definition, recognition and treatment" and also country-specific presentations on the health care markets of the Russian Federation, China, East Africa and South America by various experts.

Day two ended with the Medical Directors Forum (MDF), part of the ITIC Air Ambulance Forum (AAF). We attended this open forum and saw a healthy discussion surrounding the state of aviation medicine with recommendations on its regulation and development of continuing education.

Feelings within the forum were for AAF MDF to set standards for air medical transportation as an outside regulator may not have the same understanding for the industry. The meeting ended with a working group agreeing to form a society whose remit it will be to define the basic knowledge required for air medical crew.

Overall, the conference led to some excellent discussions. The IFNA's presentations highlighted a greater awareness of flight nursing in the UK and IFNA's plan to work with assistance companies and insurers. We all came away with a feeling of renewed enthusiasm for this very specialised area of nursing.