Conditions treated by the Rheumatology department

The department treats a range of inflammatory rheumatological conditions, including:

• juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) are a group of different types of arthritis including:

  • systemic JIA

  • polyarticular JIA

  • polyarticular onset: rheumatoid factor positive JIA 

  • oligoarticular arthritis

  • enthesitis-related arthritis

  • psoriatic arthritis

• arthritis associated with other chronic diseases

• scleroderma including systemic sclerosis and localised scleroderma 

• juvenile dermatomyositis

• vasculitides including Kawasaki disease, polyarteritis nodosa and other vasculitides

• systemic lupus erythematosus

• overlap connective tissue disease

• chronic infantile neurological cutaneous and articular syndrome

• chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis

• periodic fever syndromes including familial mediterranean fever (FMF), Cryopyrin-Associated Periodic Syndrome (CAPS) and other genetic periodic fevers

• Our colleagues in the Ophthalmology team provide care and treatment for uveitis (inflammation inside the eye), which affects many children and young people who have JIA. We’ve co-developed videos with children and young people at GOSH to help explain more about uveitis. 

The department also offers an assessment service for children referred for non-inflammatory rheumatological problems such as:

• Musculoskeletal pain
• Chronic pain syndrome

The service offers a full multidisciplinary (MDT) assessment process and provides comprehensive report of the findings and advice for ongoing management at local level.

• As a tertiary care hospital, children must be referred via local hospital consultants. GP referrals are not accepted to this service
• Any child referred to the service will need to be under the continuing care of a local Consultant
• Any child referred to this assessment service should already have had a local physiotherapy assessment and a local physiotherapy service should be available to supervise and undertake any ongoing exercise programme if this is deemed appropriate
• All referrals must be accompanied by a completed pre-referral proforma (which can be found here: Rheumatology pre-referral proforma (39.75 KB) , a physiotherapy assessment form here: Physiotherapy Proforma NIMPS and should be completed and sent with the referral proforma whenver possible.
• Referrals will not be accepted until a completed proforma has been received.

Once the referral has been received and accepted, an appointment will be sent to the family along with a pre-clinic questionnaire. The appointment at GOSH is a joint MDT assessment by the Rheumatology team, which includes a medical review, physiotherapy assessment and may also include a psychology assessment and occupational therapy assessment. Following the joint review a verbal report will be given to the parents before they leave clinic. A formal report will be sent to the referral source within 2 weeks of the appointment, providing findings and advice regarding ongoing care that should be provided locally.

The service does not provide any ongoing treatment or follow up at GOSH and the child will remain under the continuing care of the referring consultant. If an inflammatory rheumatological condition or a genetic condition is identified, the family will be referred to the appropriate clinic at GOSH for ongoing management in conjunction with the local consultant. Re-referrals to the non-inflammatory assessment service will only be accepted if there has been a significant change in rheumatological symptoms and following consultant to consultant discussion.