Please sign our petition to help patients in Wales access expert medical care in England

[Wendy39]

I hope it’s OK to post this here. Please find details of my petition following. I have included patients with lupus, raynaud’s, sjogren’s, APS, schleroderma, myosotis

We request that the Welsh Assembly Government remove the “Gate Keeper Principle” for patients in Pembrokeshire and Wales who are suffering from rare, chronic, life-limiting, life-threatening, autoimmune illness, so that these patients are presumed to have access, rather than completing an application under the WHSSC.

The Welsh Health Specialist Services Committees (WHSSC) are the representatives who are authorised to refer and commit WHSSC funding for treatment at preferred specialist centres outside Wales.

This exemption to the principle should apply to SLE, SCLE and related conditions such as Sjogren’s syndrome, and myositis etc., (the exact list of related rare autoimmune illnesses to be agreed between the Welsh Assembly Government and the British Society for Rheumatology and patient advocacy groups.

Summary

I am campaigning for access to specialist lupus care for people living with lupus in Pembrokeshire, the lack of which is severely impacting on the management of their serious chronic, often life-limiting and potentially-life shortening illness, their ability to work, their relationships and their general quality of life.

There is currently a “Gate Keeper Principle” in place and the Secretary of State for Health at the Welsh Assembly Government is refusing to remove it for lupus patients in Wales.

This puts us at an immediate disadvantage with our healthcare, treatment and medication plans, as all Centres of Excellence acknowledged by LUPUS UK are in England.

As a result, patients with lupus and other rare autoimmune illnesses (these rarely come alone and patients usually have two or more related illnesses) in Wales are being denied the right to access this expertise which could really benefit them in the long term.

Unfortunately lupus is prone to relapses and remissions and results in considerable morbidity due to flare activity and accumulated damage, with an increased risk of premature death. In fact lupus sufferers have a mean age of death of 53.7 years. Preventative measures would surely be more cost effective, rather than treating the kidney disease, strokes and heart disease etc. that can occur in the long term if the disease is not adequately controlled.

These patients would undoubtedly benefit from receiving specialist care and monitoring, with a view to local rheumatology co-operating with the lupus expert to provide the best care possible and the best outcome for the patient.

Applications for funding in Pembrokeshire, for a referral to these Lupus Experts and Centres are being denied, or doctors are refusing to complete the paperwork and make the applications in the first place, under Hywel Dda University Health Board. Patients are being encouraged not to apply as the application will never be approved.

Hywel Dda University Health Board maintain that the local hospital can adequately diagnose and treat lupus, with the inference being that we do not need to access specialist care.

LUPUS UK and the members of Pembrokeshire Lupus Support Group would strongly disagree with this assessment.

The Health Board are not following the British Society for Rheumatology Guidelines for the management of SLE in Adults, so in our opinion, are not providing an adequate level of care.

This is a very unfair and unjust system for people living with lupus in Pembrokeshire and Wales as a whole.

Lupus patients under NHS England have the right to choose where they are referred to and therefore can access these centres. Why don’t Welsh patients have this right too?

We feel that we are ignored and our illness misunderstood / underestimated every single time.

Please show your support for our cause by signing our petition.

Thank you!

Wendy Diment

Pembrokeshire Lupus Support Group

LUPUS UK

I take this opportunity to point out that the current Lupus UK Centres of Excellence are;

University College London Hospitals (UCLH)Louise Coote Lupus Clinic - Guy's and

St Thomas' Hospitals, London

The Kellgren Centre - Manchester Royal Infirmary

Alder Hey Children's Hospital - Liverpool

The Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (RNHRD), Bath

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham

Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge

The hospitals that have a lupus nurse are;

Aberdeen Royal Infirmary

Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (RNHRD), Bath

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham - very soon!

Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital

Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge

Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley

Western General Hospital, Edinburgh

Glasgow Royal Infirmary

Leicester Royal Infirmary

UCLH

Llandudno Hospital (only provision in Wales)

change.org/p/secretary-of-s...

[honeybug]

Hi Wendy39

😊🌸🌿🙏

I’d love to sign your petition but I’m across the pond and sure I don’t qualify.

Sorry 😐

EJ 😊🌸🌿🦋🙏🤗💗😘😇🕊

[Hidden]

Hi Wendy,

Is there a significant difference between the mean life expectancy of LUPUS sufferers in England compared to that of Wales?

Presumably there are other conditions other than that of the rheumatic conditions you list which are subject to the same barriers.

Have you researched if doctors in Wales trained at the specialist centres? (e.g. my rheumatologist in Bristol trained at Bath).

I can understand the frustration for Welsh sufferers if they’re unhappy with their treatment, but it seems to me like the problem is an absence of specialist care in Wales, rather than an inability for Welsh sufferers to be referred to specialist centres in England.

[Wendy39 in reply to Hidden]

I’m not sure I can totally agree with you.

There is one recognised lupus expert in Wales, Dr J Nash who has a PhD in SLE. But we can’t even get to see him.

When NHS Wales was devolved it wasn’t intended that Welsh patients be stopped from accessing healthcare that they had been accessing in England until then, but unfortunately it has been that way. There is a definite and deliberate barrier to us getting that care.

If there are no experts here we can access and no centres of Excellence, are we supposed to just accept that and let our health suffer?

Setting up a centre of Excellence is definitely a long term goal for my campaign but that kind of centre takes years to establish and what are we supposed to do in the meantime?

I would respectfully suggest that we should be granted access to the centres of Excellence in England now - until we have such a centre in Wales.

It us supposed to be a “NATIONAL Health Service” after all.

Do you mind me asking where you live? Do you get good care from the NHS in your area?

Wendy

[tall-tim]

Done.

[Wendy39 in reply to tall-tim]

Thank you! That’s brilliant. Wendy