Minutes of Annual General Meeting

International Primary Care Respiratory Group

Thursday 19th February 2004, Hotel Sofitel, Melbourne

  1. Welcome and apologies

H. John Fardy opened meeting and welcomed everyone, no apologies noted

  1. Approval of minutes from last AGM

No comment on minutes from last meeting. UK moved to approve them, Australia second. All in agreement

  1. Matters arising from minutes not covered elsewhere on agenda

Thys van der Molen noted that he wished to discuss GOLD National Leaders and HJF noted that we will open the floor at end of meeting for members to tell us what they want from IPCRG

  1. President’s report

Jim Reid spoke on the report, outlining the main issues surrounding IPCRG since last AGM. A copy of this report will be available on our website soon,

  1. Finance Report

Ron Tomlins spoke on this report and noted the main points on the accounts that covered the dates 1st January 2003 to 17th September 2003. A copy of the accounts and report will be available on our website soon,

  1. Election of Treasurer

Sian Williams noted that although the treasurers appointment is for an 8 year period to keep continuity over the other terms of office of the executive of 6 years, the treasurer did have to be re-elected annually. HJF asked for any nominations for Treasurer. There was 1 nomination. New Zealand moved to appoint RT, Sweden seconded. All in agreement.

  1. Auditor: appointment and remunerations

SW noted that we wished to appoint the auditors used by the University of Aberdeen. Netherlands moved to approve, UK seconded. All in agreement

  1. Selections of venue for 2008 conference

Both Spain (Seville) and England/Ireland, volunteered to host the 2008 conference, the choice went to a vote. 8 for Spain, 1 for UK. Passed that venue would be Spain for 2008.

  1. International Primary Care Airways Group guidelines (IPAG) update

Onno van Schayck gave a quick update that the guidelines are at approval stage and he will be giving a talk on the subject tomorrow during the conference. Further updates will be posted on our website

  1. Website

The meeting was told that at the moment we are focusing on updating the basic information, sorting out the links pages and increasing the number of links we have and creating membership pages. We have a template that Norway is currently testing.
It will allow countries to input and update information in their own language into a standard format. When this is finalised other members will be invited to use it.

The editorial team was confirmed as Mike Thomas, Miguel Roman, Hetty van Djik and Mark Levy as consulting editor.

How do we increase value and visitation to our website?

Dermot Ryan – link into IPAG guidelines

JR - abstracts of publications of members to appear on the site

Barbara Yawn - Primary care groups from each country on links, action member representatives

Chris van Weel - link to and from Wonca website

Mark Levy - links issue is vital, use members to get other links, fact sheets eg SARS

Mike Thomas - ensure to send any links to the editorial team or Lynn Danzig – contact details can be found on the website.

Hilary Pinnock - need resources that could be downloaded from the website (eg practical implications of guidelines, tools etc)

BY - Primary Care based asthma action plan, symptom based

David Price – slide sets of presentations, highlights from conference – get 2/3 slides on the presentations.

Miguel Roman – language is still an issue – it would be good to have translations done from each of the member counties. It was decided to ask each country contact and to translate a welcome page in their own language. Sam Knowles to send out details.

All the points will be considered by the executive and web editorial team.

  1. Wonca for information and discussion

A quick update on our position with Wonca was noted, we are working towards finalising details of becoming the first clinical working party. The intention was to have this relationship confirmed at the Orlando world meeting in October. DP noted his thanks to CvW and the executive on getting this relationship established.

BY – has agreed to send in abstracts for an IPCRG respiratory programme to Orlando Wonca conference.

  1. 2006 Oslo

AO gave an update of the conference. Organisation going well and he hopes to see everyone in Oslo on 8-10 June 2006, details of the conference will be available on the website soon.

  1. AOB

ML suggested improvements for managing conference abstracts. He suggested that the scientific committee should liaise with the journal editor well in advance. CvW noted that the editor should be on the scientific committee as an ex officio member. ML to write up a brief description of what he would need for the future.

TvdM noted that the IPCRG has been asked by GOLD to select a primary care representative from each country to work alongside the Gold National Leaders to disseminate the IPAG guidelines. This was accepted with a suggestion that similar links should be made with GINA and ARIA. TvdM would seek volunteers from each country. Further details will appear on our website.

The floor was opened for members to tell us what they want from the IPCRG:

DR – basic entry level education, including implementation. HP noted that the BTS produces simple tools that could be used as a basis and translated into other languages.

ML and MT suggested that the IPCRG could use an education model similar to the BMJ website and have international courses and charge to download them.

Alan Kaplan noted that we should encourage new members in order to increase our numbers.

MT noted that we should facilitate International Collaborative Research.

  1. Date of next meeting

The date of the next meeting still has to be confirmed and will be issued as soon as possible.

Meeting closed at 14.10

Please send any comments on the minutes to Sam Knowles on

Deadline for comments 1 June 2004.

For details on becoming an associate or ordinary member of the IPCRG, please see our website –