The committee reviewed RA services and concluded that people's low awareness of the disease and its symptoms was causing them to delay seeking medical help.
Prompt diagnosis of RA is crucial to preventing irreversible damage, the committee said. It argued that the DoH ‘should run a campaign during 2010 to raise people's awareness of the symptoms of RA, highlighting the need to seek prompt medical attention'.
It also identified wide variations across PCTs in the amount spent per patient on providing RA services and in access to biological therapies.
