It was unusually warm and sunny in Newcastle when many Spires team members ventured north to attend the national Annual Scientific Meeting of the Craniofacial Society of Great Britain and Ireland (CFSGBI) from the 30th April to the 2nd May. The conference celebrated the 40th birthday of the CFSGBI with a drinks reception at a rooftop bar overlooking the medieval New Castle and the iconic bridges of the Tyne, followed by a special gala dinner at the Crowne Plaza Hotel where the conference was hosted.
The meeting included presentations from all cleft disciplines from across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Spires team were proudly represented, delivering excellent presentations disseminating the latest research in their fields.
Sandra Treslove (Speech and Language Therapist) and Stephanie Jalland (Performance Artist) presented an outstanding artistic project entitled ‘For the Record’ which reflected on cleft care from baby to adulthood by sharing a patient’s personal experience through photos and words.
The acceptability of a patient reported measure, the CLEFT-Q Speech Scales, was explored by Carrie Luscombe (Speech and Language Therapist) and the work we carry out with children with palate dysfunction in the absence of a cleft palate was discussed by Lucy McAndrew (Speech and Language Therapist) with reference to data collected from five UK cleft sites.
Two Spires trainees, Krishna Patel (Orthodontic Specialist Registrar) and Lara Watson (Maxillofacial Specialist Registrar) presented findings on over 100 successive alveolar bone grafts performed at Spires and proposing a novel method of assessing the post-operative outcome. They addressed the long-term impact of this vital surgical procedure with a more patient focussed approach.
Last, but by no means least, our nurses gave two stimulating presentations; Jane Sibley spoke about a new Cleft Palate Identification Poster, which is directed towards healthcare professionals involved in infant feeding and aims to prevent missed diagnoses of cleft palate. Helen Moreland presented alongside a surgeon from the Welsh Cleft Centre, Matt Fell, who recently completed his Fellowship at Spires, regarding the management pathway for children with Robin Sequence with the aim of moving towards achieving national consensus on how this condition is treated.
The conference was packed with thought-provoking research and ideas, which the Spires team aim to adopt in order to improve the care that we offer to our patients and their families.
Pictured: Members of the Spires Cleft Centre clinical team at the CFSGBI Conference in Newcastle, 2nd May 2025