Mobile unit to help MS sufferers
A mobile infusion unit aimed at significantly improving treatment for multiple sclerosis sufferers is to be trialled at Derriford Hospital. The pilot is the first in the UK.
The fully-staffed mobile unit will help to ensure that patients will be able to receive essential regular transfusions even during particularly busy times in the hospital. There will also be a shorter time between the treatment decision being made to treatment commencing.
For the Trust benefits include more effective use of management and nurse resources; capacity freed up in the hospital, particularly the Planned Investigation Unit (PIU), and the opportunity to rent the mobile unit for other infusions.
The pilot, which is due to begin on November 19, is a result of a collaboration between Biogen Ltd, Quintiles Nursing and EMS Healthcare and will initially be for one year. Biogen is providing the nursing staff and the transfusion, Tysabri, which is given to MS sufferers every four weeks.
Professor Jeremy Hobart is the consultant leading on this project. He said: “This pilot will dramatically improve our patients’ experience and treatment including during our busy, winter bed pressures.
“We have identified 15 patients who fulfil the criteria for this service. Patients normally receive these infusions on PIU and due to the extended bed pressures that the Trust has experienced this year, many of the infusions were cancelled, rescheduled leaving patients without protection from the treatment and prone to relapses. The purpose of the mobile unit is to help trusts who experience capacity problems deliver these infusions in a timely manner.”
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic progressive incurable physically and cognitively disabling disease of young adults. The cause of MS is unknown, the incidence is increasing.
MS management has changed radically in the last five years. A range of potent disease modifying drugs are now available that can influence the natural history of MS, have the potential to radically improve outcomes, and prevent irreversible disability and brain damage.
The requirement for one treatment, Tysabri, is an infusion every four weeks to prevent disease progression and relapses. Treatment regularity is essential. When the time between infusions exceeds four weeks, the treatment effect begins to wear off, patients are increasingly unprotected against their disease and are at risk of irreversible brain damage and disability.
