Leeds Raynaud’s and Systemic Sclerosis (Scleroderma) Service

Meet your team

Medical team

• Professor F. Del Galdo – Consultant Rheumatologist.
• Dr L. Bissell – Consultant Rheumatologist.
• Registrars and Specialist Trainee doctors.

Wound care

• Dr Begonya Alcacer-Pitarch – Advanced Clinical Practitioner in wound care, and podiatry.
• Lorraine Green – Extended-scope podiatrist.

Specialist nursing

• Christina Boland.
• Jean Scopes.

Pharmacy

• Jo Sanderson – Clinical Specialist Pharmacist.
• Claire Sanderson – Clinical Specialist Pharmacist.
• Helen Lynch – Homecare Pharmacist – your contact for medications that are delivered to your home e.g. sildenafil and bosentan.

Clinical Psychology

• Alice Staniford – Clinical Psychologist.
• Georgia Carter – Counsellor.

The wider team – we work closely with many specialties to manage specific patient needs:

• Physiotherapy.
• Occupational therapy.
• Respiratory – Dr Beirne and Dr Sutherland.
• Gastroenterology – Dr Black.
• Dermatology – Dr Laws.
• Neurology – Dr Davey.
• Immunology – Professor Savic.
• Cardiology – Dr Sengupta, Dr Simms and Dr Gatenby.
• Plastic Surgery – Mr Elbatawy and Mr Bhat.
• Pulmonary Hypertension – Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

This list is not exhaustive, we work with other teams as required to meet your needs.

How we work

Routine appointments

Your routine appointments for disease and medication monitoring will be with the medical or nursing staff. These usually take place on Thursdays (although not always) and the frequency of will depend on your health needs.

These appointments might be face-to-face in the outpatient’s department on the ground floor at Chapel Allerton Hospital or could be telephone appointments.

Telephone appointments are a safe option for things like medication reviews and can be more convenient for you, especially if you live far from the hospital or need help to get here. If you feel that you have symptoms that we need to examine, please let us know and an in-person review can be arranged.

All of these clinics are supervised by the medical consultants and so you can be assured that you will be able to get the best possible care at every appointment.

Specialist appointments

Following your routine appointments, you may be referred to other health professionals for specialist assessment and help. These appointments may occur at one of the other Leeds Hospitals sites, or occasionally at another specialist centre. Appointments are arranged by the department that you have been referred to.

Wound Care Clinic appointments

Appointments with the wound care team take place in the rheumatology outpatient area at Chapel Allerton Hospital. They will assess and manage any ulceration or wounds associated with your condition and can also give advice on wound prevention.

These appointments are for specific issues and are not usually an opportunity for review by the medical team although they may seek the opinion of the medical team if they feel that this is appropriate.

Follow-up appointments in the wound care clinic will be arranged based on the assessment of the health professional. After discharge from this clinic, you can contact them for up to 12 months to self-refer for further appointments without needing a formal referral from the doctors or nurses (see ‘Useful numbers’ below).

If your hands or feet are blue and painful but you do not have any ulceration (wounds) then you should contact the advice line (see ‘Useful numbers’ below) for help regarding treatment.

Physiotherapy / Occupational Therapy appointments

Appointments with physiotherapists and occupational therapists take place on the lower ground floor at Chapel Allerton Hospital.

If you are referred to these teams, they may send you a letter requiring you to contact them to book an appointment.

Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapists can help if you experience difficulty with anything you need or want to do in your life for example your work role or cooking a meal. They can offer advice or equipment to make things easier for you or look at fatigue management strategies with you. They can provide information and reports for you to share with your employer to help with equipment or modification to your work role if necessary.

Occupational Therapists can make and fit upper limb splints to support a painful joint or to maintain a good position, this is important if skin tightening is causing your fingers to curl down into the palm. Hand exercises and stretches may be provided by either an Occupational Therapist or Physiotherapist.

Please ask a member of the team in clinic to refer you to Occupational Therapy if you feel this might help you.

Physiotherapy

The physiotherapy team provide assessment of musculoskeletal pain and prescribe appropriate exercises or manual therapy as well as pain management techniques/strategies.

The team will also signpost to community and online facilities or refer to other members of the multidisciplinary team as required.

Physiotherapists provide education around general health and fitness including weight loss and an ‘introduction to exercise’ group to support with first steps in this area.

Rheumatology advice line

If you have concerns about your condition or your medication between appointments or you have not heard from us when you are expecting to, you can call the advice line. Messages can be left Monday – Friday 9am-4pm and you will need to identify yourself, preferably using your NHS number, in order for us to be able to schedule a call back.

Prescription management team

If you have medications delivered to your home via a homecare company (usually sildenafil and/or bosentan) and you need blood tests arranging (bosentan requires monthly liver function tests) or are running out of medication, leave a message for this team. These messages are checked and responded to Monday – Friday by administrative staff. They are not able to answer clinical queries.

Useful numbers

Useful websites