Wales watching

According to the press TB services in Wales have been left floundering as demand outstrips NHS supply

TB testing service struggles to cope with demand

Dec 28 2009 by Madeleine Brindley, South Wales Echo

A SERVICE to test and treat patients with tuberculosis is struggling to cope with demand.

The Echo has learned that Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s TB service has been waiting for more than a year for an IT upgrade.

And it desperately needs more specialist nurse time to deal with rising levels of TB in Cardiff.

The concerns about the service’s ability to manage existing workloads comes as patients and staff at the University Hospital of Wales are set to be screened for TB.

A nurse working on C7 has been diagnosed with TB. It is understood that she has been infectious since September.

Work is under way to contact all those people who have been in close contact with the nurse, who has not been named.

Dr Ian Campbell, a consultant chest physician with a special interest in TB, said: “The nurses and the resources that we have are pushed to the limit – any extra workload will stretch the team even further.

“We need more specialist nurse time and we need improved IT to make it easier and more efficient for the nurses and the clinics involved.

“We have been asking for this for a year and have been told that it will come in due course.

“It is frustrating but this is the way that the NHS works – it is always slow, particularly in these financial circumstances.”

The health board’s TB specialist nurses are responsible for testing all asylum seekers and immigrants arriving in Cardiff from high-risk areas – sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia – for the disease.

They also monitor patients while they are being treated.

The service currently treats around 60 people with TB every year – each course of treatment lasts six months.

Dr Campbell said: “TB is not as uncommon as people think – we find that the disease is cropping up more and more.

“TB in Cardiff is rising progressively, although in the rest of Wales it is coming down.

“We have a large immigrant population in the city and Cardiff is also a centre for asylum seekers, many of whom will be coming from TB countries.”

Ruth Walker, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s (UHB) executive director of nursing, said: “The UHB is working in partnership with National Public Health Service for Wales and looking at resources to support the tuberculosis team.”