Latest news fro the Bella Moss Foundation:
BMF at BVNA 2011
The Bella Moss Foundation was founded in 2005 by Jill Moss following the untimely death of her dog, Bella, to MRSA in 2004. It has grown from strength to strength on the vision of one woman and the legacy to one dog now helping animals and their owners worldwide in the prevention, treatment, awareness and education surrounding MRSA and other resistant bacterial infections. www.thebellamossfoundation.com
The Bella Moss Foundation was very pleased to attend its third year as an exhibitor at BVNA congress in Kettering. We are a not for profit charity who relies on donations and the work of our volunteers. Our position to exhibit at BVNA was made possible through sponsorship. We give great thanks to Janseen Animal Health for funding our stand, to Millpledge International for supplying our exhibition material and promotional leaflets and in addition greatly appreciate all of the companies who kindly donated prizes to our raffle. We are very grateful to BVNA for their continued support to our cause and with reference to congress, the undoubted support from BVNA staff and a great stand position in the main arena. The prominence of our stand gave us the opportunity to talk to delegates and receive feedback from nurses about our educational projects.
Working with veterinary nurses is crucial in reducing infection rates in practice. Through our interactive website www.veterinarynursetrainingonline.org (VNTO) information can be found on preventing infection, a photographic interactive tour of prevention in practice and after completion of a online test can be awarded with a certificate from the College of Animal Welfare. VNTO is sponsored by Pet Plan Charitable trust.
We were delighted to be able to sponsor a lecture at congress and would like to thank our speaker Lorena Hall, who presented on Infection Control in practice and the importance of hand hygiene.
The response to our presence at BVNA was very positive, and a real pleasure to have nurses visiting our stand to praise our achievements in supporting the veterinary profession thorough our information and websites. With each year that passes, more and more nurses learn about our work and we are keen to expand our CPD programmes.
Looking ahead to next year’s congress, the foundation will develop further modules for VNTO, to educate nurses about the appropriate use of antibiotics in practice. It is a known fact that good hygiene practices along with responsible use of antibiotics helps prevent the spread of resistant bacterial infections between humans and animals. In addition to providing education for the veterinary profession, we are pleased to be contributing to the Kennel Club guidelines for pet owners for responsible pet ownership and use of antibiotics.
BVNA this year was a huge success for the foundation and in addition to informing nurses of our educational platform; we also launched our bands4bella website. www.bands4bella.com
Bands4bella is an exciting project and we encourage everyone to visit the website and download our digital music CD to help support our CPD projects. It provides a mixture of popular music donated by talented musicians who support the cause.
On December the 8th 2011 we are pleased to invite veterinary practice staff to participate in a webinar in conjunction with the webinar vet on “Recent advances in the treatment and control of methicillin-resistant staphylococci presented by J Scott Weese DVM DVSc DipAVIM” A good opportunity to acquire CPD, gain valuable knowledge and help our cause. Nurses can enter the code BMFVN to receive a discount. Please register at www.thewebinarvet.com/bellamossfoundation
So the fun and education at congress is over for another year, but through BVNA contacts that we made during the show BMF have been invited to give lectures at regional meetings, and we now prepare for another busy year, offering nurses the most up to date information on infection control.