Raising Awareness of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

The Southern Health and Social Care Trust is raising awareness of IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease).

Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis – IBD, affects over 260,000 people in the UK.

Symptoms vary from person to person and also over time with patients often having periods of good health and then suffering flare ups when symptoms get worse.

The Southern Trust set up an IBD Patient Panel in September 2013 to help improve services for patients. Since it was set up the Panel has been gathering momentum, meeting with senior management and healthcare staff to share their experiences and helping to improve services from investigation, through to diagnosis and treatment.

To date the panel has been involved in a number of awareness and information sharing initiatives within the Trust and with the Department of Health and links with Crohns and Colitis UK which helps to shape IBD services across the UK.

Specialist IBD Nurse for the Trust Ruth Hall who is Chair of the Panel explained, “With the most common symptoms being abdominal pain, diarrhoea, fatigue and weight loss, IBD can be debilitating and embarrassing to live with.

“There is no cure at the moment but we offer a range of medical and surgical treatments from Daisy Hill and Craigavon hospitals to help keep symptoms under control and reduce the chance of flare-ups.

She added, “Because IBD is long term, patients become experts in their own condition, so we want to listen and learn as much as we can from them in terms of how well our services are working and where we can make improvements.”

The IBD Patient Panel meets quarterly and always welcomes new members or if you are interested in finding out more about or joining the Patient Panel contact Ruth Hall Tel: 07788726875 or Email: ruth.hall@southerntrust.hscni.net

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Posted by Newry Times News on Apr 23 2015. Filed under Community, What's On. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry