16 January 2026
The rarest autoimmune diseases can notoriously present in a wide variety of ways, this sprawling nature meaning it can be much harder to track trends, incidence, and successful treatment techniques. Contributing to the National Early Inflammatory Autoimmune (Arthritis) Diseases Audit (NEIAA) helps tackle precisely this by capturing crucial data at a national scale.
Clinician submitted data is one of our most reliable sources of data, particularly for conditions where we have less patients to observe, confirming diagnoses and real care pathways to accurately reflect the patient journey and outcomes. Contributing to audits with even simple data such as time to referral, diagnosis, and treatment has been shown to improve outcomes on a national scale. This proves the power of visibility, creating accountability and motivating improvement.
Without a doubt, it’s vital to establish the true ‘rarity’ of these diseases. At this point in time, without comprehensive national data or international data, we cannot accurately realise the prevalence of these conditions.
‘It’s really interesting…since we started counting these cases, I think they’re not as rare as some of us thought they were. Scleroderma, which I historically thought was a very rare condition, we are picking up quite measurable numbers.’
- Dr Elizabeth Price, Great Western Hospitals
The significance of this information, and the subsequent impact on patient care cannot be underestimated.
With such a comprehensive data set, not only can audits reveal diagnostic delays, but they can also indicate the causes. By understanding what diagnostic equipment services have access to, it becomes easy to identify differences between services and learn from each other’s successes.
‘We found…we had significant diagnostic delays…because we were waiting for a biopsy and we didn't have an ultrasound service in place. Now having identified that and benchmarked ourselves against other units who have got an ultrasound service in place, we can see that they get these patients diagnosed much faster and much better throughput and hopefully much better outcomes…we're now addressing that with a business case’
-Dr Elizabeth Price, Great Western Hospitals
These sorts of solutions aren’t easy to find in isolation – the ability to benchmark against and learn from other services makes a big difference.
The real-world insights that our audit offers means that we can make decisions backed by data. One example of this is remission rates – an audit may indicate which patient demographics are more at risk, suggesting the need for more aggressive treatment, earlier on, and ultimately resulting in better outcomes for those patients.
Consistent data entry can be a challenge for all departments, even highly resourced ones, which is why it’s crucial to address the efficiency of the processes first. When University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust redesigned their service, they achieved faster assessments, quicker treatment and better remission outcomes within a year. Great Western Hospitals discovered that it actually takes less than three minutes to input the data for each patient - a small but significant commitment, and one of the quickest ways to improve patient care.
You can contribute to our NEIAA audit here - NEIA Audit | British Society for Rheumatology. Feel free to contact us for any assistance.