One small step for NRAS, one giant leap for foot health!

Hi all

Well, it’s been a very busy year so far, and I can’t believe it’s May already! I’m getting married this September, so I’m starting to panic at how fast the year is whizzing past. Another reminder of how quickly my special day is approaching came last weekend, when I attended my friend Laura’s wedding. I know that some of you have called our helpline in the past, and some will no doubt have spoken to Laura, who worked on the helpline for a year before leaving us to become a foster parent last year, which she is finding to be a difficult but very rewarding experience. She will no doubt be enjoying her relaxing honeymoon now, but who needs Miami when we’re experiencing an early British Summer here?

You’re probably all aware that the helpline team takes phonecalls and emails from anyone with queries about RA that contacts our society, but you may not be as aware of some of the other work that our helpline team does. One of our major responsibilities is in the management of our publications. We have been working hard to ensure that all of our information gradually falls in-line with the information standard scheme that we joined last year, and we are also responsible for uploading all of the information in the ‘Rheumatoid Arthritis’ section of the website, and one of the most exciting information projects that I have been involved in this year is our new section on foot health.

We have been aware for some time now that there was a need for more information on feet, footwear and general foot health for people living with rheumatoid arthritis. As many of you will know, the smaller joints in the hands and feet are the most commonly affected by RA, so feet can be one of the biggest problem areas for people with this disease, and it is not always very easy to find shoes that support the feet without compromising on style. Nobody knows this better than our chief executive, Ailsa Bosworth, who has RA herself, so has experienced this problem first-hand. This is why she has been working hard alongside podiatrists at Salford University and other healthcare professionals to create this new section on our site.

Once they’d done all the hard work, it was my job to source some of the images, design the page layouts and upload the information to our site, with help from some of my wonderful reader-reviewers, whose feedback helped me to get the information to the highest standard before the pages went live. My small contribution has made me particularly proud of how the new section has turned out, and I hope you will all find it useful. If you haven’t seen it on our site yet, follow the link below:

www.nras.org.uk/about_rheum...

I hope that many of you have been to our website and have found the information useful and as always I look forward to speaking to some of you on the helpline in the future.

Hope the weather’s good where you are!

Victoria
(NRAS Helpline & Information Coordinator)