Excuse me I am stating the blindingly obvious, but newly diagnosed patients may find the following useful.

Talking to a rheumatology consultant in the NHS can be difficult. I am sure you have all experienced the delays in waiting for appointment to come through, and then the inevitable rescheduling of those appointments. Whilst there is a certain inevitability about this in respect of your first appointment with a new specialist, what you do once that first contact has been made and you have follow-up questions?

In the NHS trust that services my area, they have taken to providing an awful lot of contact information at the top of their letters. There are two pieces of information that I think are particularly useful.

First of all there is the name and contact information for the doctor's secretary. It is as true in the NHS as it is anywhere else, that having a good relationship with the doctor's secretary can be useful when it comes to needing urgent assistance so don't be afraid to develop such a relationship. It can start with simple requests such as requesting a telephone consultation over a minor point.

Second, there is the email address of the consultants themselves. I have found a general willingness on the part of all NHS consultants that I have dealt with to correspond with patients via email. Think about it. They are generally extremely busy people (hence why it takes so long to get an appointment) but they always find time to scan and reply to their email and I think they are grateful to be able to deal with minor issues in this way. Ultimately, it helps to increase their case throughput (one of their targets). As the NHS looks for ever greater savings and to do more with less I think we can expect an even greater willingness to use email.

You do of course have to accept that there is a slight risk in discussing medical matters via a public formats such as email which is not secure. I think the risk is minimal because this is not the kind of information that is of financial benefit to anybody, so the tiny risk is well outweighed by the benefit of quick contact.

You may well be doing this already, in which case great. But if you are newly diagnosed you might find this information useful.

Hope it helps..

Hi,

At my hospital I have direct telephone numbers to the two rheumy secretaries, which was given to me at my first appointment by my specialist, and email access to the nurse. I've spoken to the secretaries a few times and find them really helpful. It's nice having someone to discuss appointments etc. at the end of the line and makes a change rather than being 'in the system'!

Louise.

Paul

I live in the Telford and Wrekin area and we have a dedicated NHS Rheumatology Service outside of the hospital which has been running for about three years now. It is in fact five minutes away from where I work. It is manned by Rheumatology Nurses and Consultants. They are open five days a week and you can either speak to the Rheumatology Nurses direct or the Receptionists will get them to ring you back on the same day. On several occasions I have been told to just pop around and they will see me.

One of the specialists on the Rheumatology Committee is a GP who suffers from RA herself and I am sure that this has had a great influence in how the service is run in our area.

We are so lucky and I wish everyone has such a brilliant service.

Take care

Jackie