TY - JOUR T1 - Accessibility and quality of secondary care rheumatology services for people with inflammatory arthritis: a regional survey JF - Clinical Medicine JO - Clin Med SP - 579 LP - 584 DO - 10.7861/clinmedicine.7-6-579 VL - 7 IS - 6 AU - RS Sandhu AU - GJ Treharne AU - EA Justice AU - AC Jordan AU - S Saravana AU - K Obrenovic AU - N Erb AU - GD Kitas AU - IF Rowe Y1 - 2007/12/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/7/6/579.abstract N2 - Secondary care rheumatology services for patients with inflammatory arthritis (IA) in the West Midlands were audited using Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA) standards of care. Questionnaires were analysed from 1,715 patients in 11 rheumatology departments. ARMA standards recommend full multidisciplinary team assessment; referral rates to nurse specialists (52.3%), physiotherapists (48.7%) and occupational therapists (36.5%) were, however, lower than expected. Attendance at existing hospital-led education groups was rare (8.9%), awareness of existing helplines was moderate (59.2%) but the proportion of patients reporting satisfaction with advice about their disease was high (80.5%). Significant variations were found between departments. For patients with IA <2 years (n=236), 84.5% were seen by a rheumatologist within the ARMA standard of 12 weeks of referral; diagnosis of a type of IA was made at the first rheumatology appointment in 66.4%; 82.8% of rheumatoid arthritis patients had commenced disease-modifying drugs, although time to commencement varied across departments. This study raises issues regarding provision of rheumatology services, prioritisation of patient referral and patient education. ER -