Update 57; Is this the start of a more open and inclusive discussion?
Today we stumbled across a public Facebook post by Tiny Tickers. One of their trainers, (Helen) recently attended the ASA International Conference in Melbourne, Australia (Australasian Sonographers Association).
This FB post explains that Helen delivered a presentation, "Echoes of the Future: The Archiving of Fetal Cardiac Views". “This explored the prevalence of congenital heart disease and the current UK guidance on fetal heart assessment during pregnancy”.
“Helen also shared insights into what hospital trusts expect from sonographers, touching on the legal responsibilities around storing images and video clips. Most importantly, she presented the real-world views of UK sonographers — gathered through our recent survey — highlighting the daily challenges they face and their thoughts on image archiving in clinical practice”.
A summary of this presentation (on screen at the conference) is visible on the Tiny Tickers FB post;
“56% of UK Trusts still store fetal heart images despite national guidelines (FASP) saying this is unnecessary”
“Change.org petition”
“Importance of national standardisation in fetal heart imaging”.
“Public confidence in the profession”
“May better serve the interests of justice, beneficial for both sonographers and patients”.
We feel this public post is significant on many levels - we’ve not seen this happen openly before. This presentation by Helen appears to have offered some validation to our campaign and our efforts over the last 18 months. To our knowledge, our petition on Change is the only petition concerning fetal cardiac view retention. We therefore presume the referenced Change.org petition is ours. We'd love to hear the outcome of the national sonographer survey for their views on retaining "views". We are so grateful for all Tiny Tickers have done ❤️ They have approached the sensitivities here from a very considered and largely neutral angle.
If anyone can facilitate access to this ASA presentation we’d be very grateful. The only options available to us are to pay hundreds of dollars for the ASA2025MEL recordings through eventsair.com.
Tiny Tickers FB page / post;