Chapter Name: New Zealand League Against Epilepsy (NZLAE)
Report By: Suzanne Davis

Publications:

None

Summary of Activities:

2020 was a quieter year in terms of NZLAE education activities. We decided not to run our Annual Education Day because of uncertainties related to the Covid-19 situation, and missed the opportunity to meet together in person.

On the other hand, we have continued to run our Paediatric Epilepsy Training (PET) courses. We first introduced the British Paediatric Neurology (BPNA) PET courses to New Zealand in 2017 when a group from the BPNA visited New Zealand and trained 8 of our paediatric neurologists and four paediatricians to teach the courses. We appreciate that we are in a unique situation to be able to meet together in lectures and workshops at times when we have no local community cases of Covid-19 in February (PET 1 and 2) and March (PET 1 and 3) 2020. We have now 217 paediatricians and paediatric trainees who have completed a PET course. In addition, 11 paediatric neurologists, 25 nurses, 2 physiotherapists, 9 EEG technicians and 9 epilepsy educators have attended PET courses. Unfortunately, our planned collaboration with the Australia and New Zealand Child Neurology Society (ANZCNS) to launch PET courses in Australia in May 2020 has been postponed because of the Covid-19 related international travel bans. NZLAE is committed to support health care workers in the Pacific Region. In 2020 we sponsored a paediatric trainee working in the Cook Islands to attend a PET course.

NZLAE members continue to work to improve the lives of people with epilepsy in New Zealand. A group continues to work with the Ministry of Health on an ambitious 5-year project to improve the services provided to people with epilepsy at a community level, as well as primary, secondary and tertiary levels of care, and in particular to accomplish equity of access to care regardless of geography, age or ethnicity. We have also updated the New Zealand Paediatric Epilepsy Guidelines, first published in 2018, and continue work to roll out the Clinical Pathways for primary care providers to all regions of New Zealand.

Challenges:

We are a small chapter with relatively few adult and paediatric neurologists with a primary interest in epilepsy, and a small number of epilepsy nurses and dieticians trained to manage epilepsy diets. This means that services are unevenly spread to all regions of the country. We hope that by focusing our resources on the education of our medical and allied health professionals who provide services to people with epilepsy we will improve outcomes for all.

In 2021 we will reengage with the Ministry of Health, who have been focused on the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, to support the resources needed to launch our 5-year epilepsy improvement project.

Future Plans:

In 2021 NZLAE will run our Annual Education Day in September. We will not plan on bringing an overseas speaker this year, but focus on diagnosis and management of a first seizure for providers in primary and secondary levels of care.

We will run PET courses in March (PET 1 and 2) and October (PET 1 and 3), using only our New Zealand faculty. The registrations for the March course are already fully subscribed.

Officer Election Date: November 2020