Paediatric Allergy Special Interest Group

Dr Nick Makwana – Chair of the Paediatric Allergy Special Interest Group

Dr Makwana graduated from the University of Birmingham Medical School and completed his paediatric training within the West Midlands. He went on to work at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool and gained an MD from the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Liverpool. He specialised in Paediatric allergy after gaining his certificate in specialist training and is an EAACI accredited allergist.  He is the lead paediatric allergist at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals and is responsible for the multi-disciplinary paediatric allergy service cross site. The service sees around 3000 patients per year. 

The Paediatric Allergy Committee was formed in July 2004. It is multidisciplinary and open to all BSACI members who share an active interest in the field of paediatric allergy. All healthcare professionals are invited to join. An open meeting is held once a year at the BSACI Annual Conference.

Aim-The aim of the Committee is to improve the care of children with allergies and to promote the development and practice of paediatric allergy.

Members are actively involved in the clinical care of children as well as in research and development of new methods of investigation and treatment of allergic disease. The Committee works with the RCPCH to develop subspecialty training posts and supports the development of new consultant posts in paediatric allergy. Encouraging trainees to proceed in this field is a crucial function of the group. We support a network of regional paediatric allergy interest groups. Members have represented paediatric allergy on the development of NICE guidelines for the management of eczema, food allergy, anaphylaxis and the Health Technology Assessments for Pharmalgen and Omalizumab. Members input into BSACI guideline development through the Standards of Care Committee and help with the programme at the annual conference. We are working towards improving services for adolescents with allergy, improving the transition to adult services and developing a national audit of the use of immunotherapy in children with asthma. We have developed standards for paediatric allergy services (click to download)

Recent projects

• Paediatric Allergy Services Survey – all trusts in the UK were sent a brief questionnaire establishing whether they provided paediatric allergy services. This was done as a Freedom of Information request, the result being that a response was received from every single trust in the UK. The great majority of these were providing paediatric allergy services and will be sent a more comprehensive questionnaire. To view a copy of the survey, please click here
• Allergy Action Plans for children (Click to find out more and download plans) 

• The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Allergy Care Pathways

Following the 2006 Department of health review of allergy services, the RCPCH Research Division was commissioned to define care pathways for children with allergic symptoms. The care pathways have been developed to describe the optimal care for children with allergies and be found here.

PaedAllergy e.group

This is an informal discussion group where clinical cases and issues relating to allergy service management are discussed.
If you would like to join the group, please e.mail the e.group moderator Dr Diab Haddad on [email protected] stating the following;

1.    Job title and location
2.    Postal address
3.    Relationship to paediatric allergy

Committee
The committee comprises:

Committee Governance 

BSACI Terms of Reference (ToR) define the purpose and structure of each BSACI committee. It outlines how we appoint committee members and chairs of which a job description for the chair is below.