What help do you provide for people with arthritis?

We do an enormous number of things. Virtually every patient that attends hospital who is diagnosed with an arthritis condition, and as I mentioned there are a large number of different conditions, it’s very difficult at the time they receive that information about the diagnosis to take in the information the doctor or nurse tells them. So what Arthritis Research UK has produced is a series of booklets that are provided in every single hospital and most healthcare centres up and down the country, providing this information for patients and this information is now available on our website. And I think it’s fair to say that we are recognised nationally for the quality of that information. And backing up that information is education to those people who have to provide healthcare to patients – doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and others - so they know the kinds of advice they can give to patients. But patients, and their careers and the general population can also find that information direct, not only about their condition but about the research that we’re doing and what’s going to happen not only now, but in the future and we’re very keen that people with arthritis and people surrounding them get involved in our work and they can do that in a number of ways. We have a programme that includes people with arthritis to help us shape our research programme because we need to make sure the research we’re doing is of benefit to the people it is designed to benefit. We want people to participate in our research, we want people to advise us about the material we’re producing, either printed material or on the web – is this right for you? Using our website as a forum to allow people to exchange their views on, for example, things they’ve learnt about things that worked for them, that have not worked, ideas that they’ve come across in terms of education or research, or even novel ways of treatment. Were hear to listen, and in fact in the past we’ve realised the amazing contribution that individuals can make and what we want to do with our forum is harness that. We want people to get involved in helping us lobby governments, the people who provide healthcare in their community because ultimately we all need to work together to improve and enhance the way we deliver care to patients with arthritis.