A new clinic for Lyme disease patients will start from September in the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester. The clinic will be run by Dr Matthew Dryden who has long had an interest in Lyme disease and has treated more than 500 patients over 20+ years.
We hope that this will provide an opportunity for the national referral of less straightforward cases and will encourage the development of some national expertise – something which in the NHS has been lacking. Infectious diseases consultants see too few cases to have developed experience and rely heavily on the serology test results: see our discussion of “Lyme disease in a British referral clinic”.
LDA will be discussing with Dr Dryden and the PHE Lyme disease specialist laboratory at Porton how to make this clinic meet doctors’ and patients’ needs.