Dr Adele Mourad, Research Fellow at BSMS, has been awarded the top prize in the inaugural Dr Falk UK/BASL/BLT Awards. Dr Mourad received the 2023 Quality & Service Improvement Award on behalf of the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust team for the project, ‘Engaging the disengaged to achieve Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) elimination’.
Other members of the winning team were Nurse Margaret O’Sullivan, Dr Rona McGeer, Nurse Emma Gray, Nurse Vikki Charles, Scott Harfield and the Sussex Hepatitis Operational Delivery Network. Prof Sumita Verma, also of BSMS, was the team mentor and co-leader of the project.
The award, which includes financial support for the project, was presented to Dr Mourad by Dr Rebecca Jones, President of BASL, at a ceremony at the BASL Annual Meeting in Brighton on 21 September.
The winning initiative, which has already been endorsed by the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the British Viral Hepatitis Group and the Hepatitis C Trust, linked vulnerable people, such as drug users and the homeless, into a viable HCV treatment programme with the aim of successfully eliminating their infection. Two studies, ITREAT and ENDC, which ran at an addiction and homeless shelter respectively, identified and treated vulnerable people, as well as keeping and comparing outcomes. The project team engaged with addiction staff, psychiatrists, peer mentors and social workers as well as service users and provided services including testing, treatment, counselling and peer support on site.
Dr Mourad said: “If left untreated, HCV leads to serious liver damage. Unfortunately, the majority of people infected with HCV are drug users and the homeless and are often hard to reach. Our studies showed that in 2011, only 5% of people referred via an addiction centre attended their hospital appointment, and none were successfully treated.
“Now our service has been completely transformed. The projects have resulted in engagement with 1,100 people in the community, a 90% treatment compliance rate, high HCV cure rates, low re-infection rates and a 48% reduction in HCV mortality. One patient we successfully treated had been living with HCV for 15 years.
“Additionally, these projects also allowed us to assess and gain valuable insight into current service provision and what a future service might need to look like. The award will be used to train and support peer mentors for this patient group, provide travel costs for clients to attend blood borne virus testing and treatment along with travel costs for the research team members to attend conferences to disseminate study findings.”
This is the first year of the Dr Falk Pharma/BASl/BLT Awards which are dedicated to encouraging innovation and promoting patient care in the field of hepatology. The Awards, entry for which will open in spring every year, have two categories. The first, with a value of up to £2,000, is given to a project currently about to begin and which is to be completed within the next 12–24 months.
The second award, which will see two winning teams awarded up to £1,000 each, will recognise projects already started or completed within the previous three years which have already resulted in service improvement benefits. In both categories, the lead applicant/s must be a member of BASL or an affiliated group and, in accordance with the BASL Inclusiveness Policy, all team members are encouraged to apply for membership.
President of BASL, Dr Rebecca Jones added: “Liver disease is a rapidly changing and expanding area of medicine and we at BASL place great value on high-quality research and innovation in the management of treatment within our speciality. Our new collaboration with Dr Falk Pharma UK (education) and the British Liver Trust will encourage and recognise the many service developments and improvements that have been achieved in the liver community."