Find and Treat
Sara Hemming tracks down hard to reach tuberculosis patients
- By: Alexander Romain
Find and Treat is a multidisciplinary project funded by Department of Health to tackle tuberculosis in “hard to reach groups,” such as homeless people, people with drug or alcohol addictions, and prisoners.
We know that in London patients from hard to reach groups are more likely to be infectious, not complete their course of treatment, develop or have drug resistant forms of disease, and become lost to follow-up. We are an outreach service. We take the service to the patient as it is unrealistic to expect them to come to us.
There isn’t a typical day. What we do is very varied and depends on the types of referrals we receive. A lot of our work involves locating and re-engaging with patients who are lost to follow-up (through not accessing care, or they have disappeared). We have been asked to locate almost 200 patients so far and found more than