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The author discusses the challenges facing health services and their staff across Europe. She informs that although at the conferences many innovative oral presentations demonstrating how high quality patient-centred care is being implemented are presented, many of these projects are not shared with others once the conference is over. She states that she wants to support such authors who do not have the time or experience to write their project up as a full paper for publication.

The article discusses the 15th International Philosophy of Nursing (IPONS) Conference held on 25–28 August 2011, at the West Park Centre in Dundee, Scotland. Several speakers at the conference included professor Sam Porter, Queen's University, Belfast, Peter Allmark, of Sheffield Hallam University and Robert Newsom from Guildford Technical Community College in North Carolina. Several papers presented at the conference focused on the theme of 'Healthcare and the Politics of Austerity.'

The International Compression Club (ICC) is a partnership between academics, clinicians and industry focused upon understanding the role of compression in the management of different clinical conditions. The ICC meet regularly and from these meetings have produced a series of eight consensus publications upon topics ranging from evidence-based compression to compression trials for arm lymphoedema. All of the current consensus documents can be accessed on the ICC website (http://www.icc-compressionclub.com/index.php). In May 2011, the ICC met in Brussels during the European Wound Management Association (EWMA) annual conference. With almost 50 members in attendance, the day-long ICC meeting challenged a series of dogmas and myths that exist when considering compression therapies. In preparation for a discussion on beliefs surrounding compression, a forum was established on the ICC website where presenters were able to display a summary of their thoughts upon each dogma to be discussed during the meeting. Members of the ICC could then provide comments on each topic thereby widening the discussion to the entire membership of the ICC rather than simply those who were attending the EWMA conference. This article presents an extended report of the issues that were discussed, with each dogma covered in a separate section. The ICC discussed 12 'dogmas' with areas 1 through 7 dedicated to materials and application techniques used to apply compression with the remaining topics (8 through 12) related to the indications for using compression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the first Central European Haemophilia Interactive Forum for Opinion Leaders in Haemophilia, held in Budapest, Hungary in May 2013 to discuss improving access to quality care for haemophilia patients. Topics discussed include improving professional education of specialists about haemophilia, assessment of haemophilia care in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, and immune tolerance induction (ITI) therapy.

The articles in this supplement were developed from a recent pan-European conference entitled ‘HIV in Europe 2007: Working together for optimal testing and earlier care’, which took place on 26–27 November in Brussels, Belgium. The conference, organized by a multidisciplinary group of experts representing advocacy, clinical and policy areas of the HIV field, was convened in an effort to gain a common understanding on the role of HIV testing and counselling in optimizing diagnosis and the need for earlier care. Key topics discussed at the conference and described in the following articles include: current barriers to HIV testing across Europe, trends in the epidemiology of HIV in the region, problems associated with undiagnosed infection and the psychosocial barriers impacting on testing. The supplement also provides a summary of the World Health Organization's recommendations for HIV testing in Europe and an outline of an indicator disease-guided approach to HIV testing proposed by a committee of experts from the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS). We hope that consideration of the issues discussed in this supplement will help to shift the HIV field closer towards our ultimate goal: provision of optimal HIV testing and earlier care across the whole of the European region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]