Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Background: The UK average time to diagnosis for axial SpA is 8.5 years 1. NASS's vision is that everyone with axial SpA should be diagnosed within 12 months of symptom onset (2), thereby minimising future complications, improving quality of life and commencing timely appropriate treatment and self-management. However, there are challenges in measuring time to diagnosis at UK level: The available data are mostly quite old – 2015 There is a national audit but it only covers England and Wales. It has low uptake for axial SpA. Most data sets come from just one or two rheumatology departments Since 2019 NASS has run a quality improvement programme called Aspiring to Excellence, involving 23 rheumatology departments all working on improving time to diagnosis. We wanted to measure their time to diagnosis. We decided to work together to create a new measurement approach. Objectives: To create a simple tool to measure the time to diagnosis for axial SpA across the UK in order to benchmark performance and drive change. Methods: Working with a group of clinicians from across the Aspiring to Excellence programme we: Set up a clinical working group to define the collection tool 54(12):2283-4 2 Webb D, Swingler L, Barnett R, Sengupta R, Marshall L, Hamilton J, Zhao S & Gaffney K. Act on axial SpA: A Gold Standard time for the diagnosis of axial SpA (2021). London: National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society Acknowledgements: Bamford S, Chan A, Chan M, Das D, Freestone J, Gregory W, Gudu T, Hamilton J, Hutton K, Tahir H & Zhao S. Disclosure of Interests: None declared.
Eddison et al. (Sat,) studied this question.