Can You Help us to Improve?

Click to visit the QPIDS website: Royal College of Physicians Accreditation

In February 2018 the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) visited Stoke to assess the immunology service and awarded us accreditation on the day with no actions required.

The team were awarded 'Team of the Month' in April 2018 as a result of the improvements made.

Click to visit the IQAS website: https://www.iqas.org.uk/

In December 2018 the RCP accreditation team awarded us accreditation for the allergy service. 

We are keen to look at ways to make our service better and often patients think of things we could be doing that we have not thought of.  You can let us know in a number of ways:

Talk to us about being a patient representative.  A number of patients agree to meet with us about twice a year and discuss the service and how we can improve it.

In 2017 we had a quality review meeting and several patients attended, as well as Lynne Regent from The Anaphylaxis Campaign and Sue Walsh from PID-UK.  Since then we have annual reviews.  If you want to take part in the next one let your consultant know.

We also carry out patient satisfaction surveys once a year. We look carefully at all the results and act on all of the suggestions or criticisms made.  The results of the surveys are posted on the immunology board in outpatients or you can request a copy.

You can also give feedback –good and bad, through the patient advice and liaison service 

Often patients can provide support to one another in a way that healthcare professionals cannot.  There are a number of ways that you might be able to help other patients:

When you first came to clinic you may have been quite worried and had a lot of questions.  Sometimes people worry about the management of their condition, whether it is patients who need treatment for immunodeficiency, HAE or who have to manage severe allergies.  

It can be helpful to read about someone else's experience and know that you are not the only person who has felt like this and that often with time it gets easier.  Patient stories are a description of your experience of allergy or immunodeficiency.  We would be really keen to support anyone who would like to write a patient story for our website.

Support groups provide a chance to meet other people living with similar medical problems in your area, share experiences, swap tips and talk about what's on your mind in a relaxed, supportive setting.  The Anaphylaxis Campaign facilitate some groups in the UK: .  We do not have any local support groups for allergy, but we would be happy to help any local groups that developed in the area.

Particularly for patients starting on immunoglobulin replacement therapy or C1 treatment for HAE it can be useful to have another patient to speak to who has been through the same experience. 

If you would like to be a 'phone buddy' and provide support over the phone to another person starting the same treatment as you, let us know.  We would not give out your phone number to anyone unless you agreed first.

We are actively involved in research into immunological conditions.  We keep databases of information about our service so that we can audit what we are doing and make sure that we meet the best standards of care.

We take part in studies to look at ways to improve care of allergy and immunodeficiency patients, for instance:

• The UK primary immunodeficiency network registry
• The 100,000 genome project
• The NIHR bioresource project –rare diseases
• The COVID vaccine in antibody deficiency (COVAD) study
• The British immunotherapy registry