Leeds Team SpA were awarded a BRITSpA Travelling fellowship in Feb 2020. The team including Drs Helena Marzo-Ortega, Jane Freeston, Claire Vandevelde, Andrew Barr, Nurse Specialist Charlotte Davis, Pyshiotherapist Isla Butler, who travelled to the Royal United Hospitals Bath to visit their rheumatology unit, of similar size to the Leeds rheumatology service.

The visit was hosted over two days by Dr Sengupta and Dr Tillett.  During this time, the team learnt of Bath’s outpatient provision for axial Spondyloarthritis and Psoriatic arthritis patients as a site of recognised expertise, in particular their outpatient set-up, waiting list management, NHS database, research integration and their world-renowned two week in-patient physiotherapy programme, which is unique in the UK.

Both the Leeds and Bath teams felt that this was a really fruitful opportunity to learn from each other, taking valuable information back home such as the Bath’s integrated patient self-management education programme.