SOP Bulletin No. 46

26 March 2001

THE FOLLOWING RMA SOPS ARE TO BE GAZETTED ON 28 March, 2001

IMPORTANT OPERATIONAL FEATURES

• There has been a major change to these SOPs.
• The revoked SOPs had no causal factors.  The new SOPs have a head injury factor - "suffering a head injury at least 10 years or more before the clinical onset".  The head injury definition covers a fracture of the skull, loss of consciousness for more than 15 minutes, post-traumatic amnesia for more than 30 minutes, or a cerebral laceration or contusion.

• There are substantial changes to these rarely used SOPs.
• The herbicides in Vietnam factor in the RH SOP has been removed and effectively replaced by a reworked halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs) factor.  HAHs include dioxin, a contaminant of herbicides used in Vietnam.
• New causal factors have been added for: cirrhosis; hepatic haemosiderosis; haemochromatosis; oral oestrogen therapy; haemodialysis; and porphyrin-generating hepatocellular tumours.
• The alcohol and hepatitis factors have been amended.
• Most of the causal factors have been included as worsening factors also.
• A new worsening factor has been added for treatment with various drugs.  The list of drugs differs between the RH and BOP SOPs.

• These SOPs covers Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, as before.
• New factors:

• The stopping smoking factor applies to someone who has had a regular smoking habit and then stopped between 3 months and 10 years (RH) / 5 years (BOP) before onset of disease. 
• “A regular smoking habit” is defined differently in the RH (≥ 5 pk yrs) and BOP (≥ 10 pk yrs) SOPs.
• Policy advice on relating stopping smoking to service will be forthcoming.

Remember! If you are having any problems with SOPs, or SOPs in CCPS, talk to us!