1,000 signatures reached
To: The NHS website content team
Add Aplastic Anaemia to the NHS website
Aplastic Anaemia is a rare and life-threatening blood disorder caused by the bone marrow not functioning properly. In people with aplastic anaemia, the bone marrow fails to produce enough of all three types of blood cells.
People with aplastic anaemia are treated in the same wards as people with blood cancer and receive similar treatment (for example they may have chemotherapy, or a bone marrow transplant).
But you won't find any mention of Aplastic Anaemia on www.NHS.uk.
We are asking for aplastic anaemia to be added to NHS.uk as a listed condition, as other similarly rare conditions are.
Why is this important?
This is a particular problem because aplastic anaemia is frequently confused with "being anaemic" (having an iron deficiency.) Not only is aplastic anaemia absent as a condition on the NHS website, but when you search for it you are presented with pages about iron deficiency and other, less serious, conditions making this confusion worse.
This makes it difficult for people with aplastic anaemia to ask for the support they need from family and friends and leads to difficulty with taking extended time off work for life altering treatment, including bone marrow transplants. It also results in people who are seriously ill struggling to access the UK benefits system.
Many patients go to clinicians for letters that explain the impact of the condition, to take to employers. Having aplastic anaemia on the NHS conditions website would save NHS staff time and improve the mental health of aplastic anaemia patients. The Aplastic Anaemia Trust have leading NHS haematologists on their Research and Clinical Advisory Panel and have offered to draft text for a web page.
