Positive news for paediatric rheumatology services in Wales

Our campaign to establish a rheumatology service for children and young people in Wales has received a number of boosts this month.Wales is the only home nation without a full multidisciplinary paediatric rheumatology service. Current provision is made up of part-time and limited services. This means many children and young people are travelling significant distances which often exacerbates their painful symptoms, and can be very disruptive and upsetting for them.Arthritis Care Wales and Arthritis Research UK, together with theNational Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) and theBritish Society for Rheumatology (BSR), have been jointly campaigning for a full multidisciplinary paediatric rheumatology service to be set up in South Wales, and an expansion of the current service in North Wales.The campaign has had a very busy year. We helped organise a successful awareness raising event in Cardiff, where over a third of Assembly Members (AMs) attended, to a debate at the Welsh Assembly where a Motion was passed calling for a new paediatric rheumatology service to be established. This activity lead to the Welsh Government agreeing that the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee (WHSSC) should undertake a review of current services. We have kept this issue on the radar of AMs, and in March a number of them tabled questions at the National Assembly for Wales, further supporting calls for paediatric rheumatology services in Wales to be expanded.The campaign received a further boo...
Source: Arthritis Research UK - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: news