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BANNAR is a group of interested and committed professionals from medical, nursing and allied health backgrounds working in adolescent and young adult (AYA, aged 10-24) rheumatology.
We aim to provide a network of people working across the UK to promote research into adolescent rheumatology and drive forward the development of excellent clinical care for AYA with rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease (RMD).
BANNAR meet twice a year (once in London and once out of London) and have regular email/telephone contacts between meetings. BANNAR are a central point of reference for researchers and policy makers and provide signposting to relevant resources. They want to engage young people and their families, as well as professionals, with research to improve the evidence base for, and the clinical care of, young people aged 10-24 years with rheumatic disease.
One of BANNAR's first projects was to co-design, with young people, a process to engage AYAs with RMD in research and help researchers design and carry out adolescent responsive research. The result has been our national youth advisory Panel YOUR Rheum who can be contacted if you would like to discuss your plans for AYA research for them to feed back on.
Membership
Members are represented from all areas of the UK with a fairly equal split of those working predominantly in adult or paediatric backgrounds as well as dedicated adolescent rheumatology professionals. Dr Rachel Tattersall is the Chair of BANNAR, supported by 2 Deputy Chairs: Dr Janet McDonagh and Dr Flora McErlane. BANNAR members are expected to attend 2 face to face meetings annually and actively support ongoing work in the interim.