On Wednesday 19th July, Guy’s and St Thomas’s held their annual sickle cell awareness event in the Governors Hall at St Thomas’s Hospital. It was a very well attended event and drew in both patients affected by sickle cell disease and healthcare professionals from across the Trust and the wider STSTN region. The event programme was packed with interesting talks about current and new treatments, local services, support services, and patient experiences.
Hearing from patients is often the most inspiring and moving part of these events, and this day was no exception. Keith James and Suzan Flemming shared their experiences of living with sickle cell disease and the impact it has had on their lives. From both talks it was clear that having support – whether that’s from a psychologist or the nursing team – can have a truly positive impact on how manageable living with sic
kle cell can be. It was fantastic to hear how Keith retrained as a counsellor after being support by Dr Nicky Thomas, and that Suzan has won awards for her work in the community.
Dr Inusa, Dr Kesse-Adu and Dr Howard gave presentations on different treatments for sickle cell disease and its complications. Dr Kesse-Adu’s talk on transplants raised a lot of questions about how the treatment works and whether it can be used in adult patients, and we ended the day on a positive note as Dr Howard gave an update on exciting new treatments that are making their way through the clinical trials process.
We heard from the nursing team at GSTT about the transition service, updates to the service provided by the day unit, and a look at why the anti-sickness drug cyclizine is currently being withdrawn at GSTT.
As well as looking at treatments for sickle cell, the day also included talks from the community team and the Sickle Cell Society. We heard more about the Sickle Cell Society’s current project, the South London Link (more information here), 
which is open to patients in Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and the STSTN region (map). Daniel Nyakutsey gave an update on the welfare support that patients are entitled to and encouraged everyone to band together to ensure that people with sickle cell disease receive appropriate financial support. And finally, Nkechi Anyanwu, the community team lead, talked through the services that her team provide and how to access them (more information here).
On behalf of STSTN I would like to say a huge thank you to Mina Abedian and the psychology team at Guy’s for putting on such an informative and engaging day.
If you missed the event, but would still like to know more, you can access a selection of the presentations below: