NHS team dedicated to supporting people with bleeding disorders marks World Haemophilia Day – Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

A specialist NHS team dedicated to supporting people with bleeding disorders across the Bradford district will be raising awareness of the condition on World Haemophilia Day, 17 April.

The theme of this year’s event is ‘Access for All: prevention of bleeds as the global standard of care’ and Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI), City Hall and Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust’s buildings will be lit up red – #lightupred – to mark the day.

The Haematology team is based at The Meadows haematology and oncology day unit at Eccleshill Community Hospital, part of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Offering support, treatment and advice to patients and families affected by haemophilia and other bleeding disorders, the team of nurses, doctors and counsellors work with inpatients, outpatients and emergency cases, and treat people of all ages.

The Haemophilia/Haemoglobinopathy clinical nurse specialists: Sumerah Mobeen, Cecilia Essien and Stacey Doherty see more than 500 patients from across the Bradford district and also Airedale and Halifax.

Cecilia said:

The symptoms of haemophilia can be mild to severe, depending on the level of clotting factors you have. The main symptom is spontaneous bleeding into certain parts of the body like, the joints and ankles and prolonged bleeding in trauma that does not stop. People with haemophilia may have nosebleeds that take a long time to stop, or women may have heavy periods.

There is currently no cure for the condition, but effective treatments can allow someone with haemophilia to enjoy a good quality of life – and that’s what our team is dedicated to doing.

The team also offers training and educational equipment to teach parents, carers and patients to administer medication to treat and to prevent bleeding. Educational leaflets and information on a range of bleeding disorders are also available.

To mark World Haemophilia Day the team held an awareness day on the main concourse and visited wards at BRI to make sure that surgical and medical teams know about its expert help and advice.

Haemophilia: the facts

Haemophilia is a rare condition that affects the body’s ability to clot. It’s usually inherited and most people who have it are male.

Normally, when you cut yourself, substances in your blood known as clotting factors mix with blood cells called platelets to make your blood sticky and form a clot. This makes the bleeding stop eventually.

People with haemophilia do not have as many clotting factors as they should have in their blood, so they bleed for longer than usual.

Blood tests can diagnose haemophilia and find out how severe it is. If there’s no family history of haemophilia, it’s usually diagnosed when a child begins to walk or crawl. Mild haemophilia may only be discovered later, usually after an injury or a dental or surgical procedure.

There’s no cure for haemophilia, but treatment usually allows a person with the condition to enjoy a good quality of life.

Man-made clotting factors are given as medicines to prevent and treat prolonged bleeding; these are given as an injection. In milder cases, injections are usually only given in response to prolonged bleeding. Most severe cases are treated with regular injections to prevent bleeding.