On International Nurses’ Day 2025 and ahead of #InternationalBehcetsAwarenessDay on 20 May, we’re highlighting one of our incredible nurses - Sarah Hardy, a Nurse Consultant and Lead Nurse for the NHS England Behçet’s National Centre of Excellence at Aintree Hospital.
Sarah tells us about her nursing journey, and her current role supporting our patients, and colleagues working with Behçet’s, a complex multisystemic autoinflammatory syndrome...
My name is Sarah Hardy and I am the Nurse Consultant and Lead Nurse for the NHS England Behçet’s National Centre of Excellence in Aintree Hospital. There are over 800 patients cared for at the centre and we accept referrals from across England and from the devolved nations with dedicated funding.
I started nursing 42 years ago in Birmingham and have many years of experience in vascular surgery, nephrology and intensive care. I completed my MSc in advance nursing in 2019 and joined the Behçet’s team during the pandemic just over 4 years ago, having previously worked at LUHFT, caring for patients with multi organ vasculitis.
Behçet’s is a complex multisystemic autoinflammatory syndrome which mainly affects adults in their 30’s with oral and genital ulceration, joint pain, eye and skin inflammation and in severe cases life threatening blood vessel and neurological problems. This is a remitting and relapsing disease and although the cause is not fully understood, there is likely a causal relationship between infection, genetics and immune system dysfunction.
My role includes triaging and processing new referrals, contributing to the multidisciplinary assessment, providing medication education and ongoing safety management. I manage a dedicated Behçet’s telephone advice line for rapid help and support for patients who may be struggling with a flare of their disease, for instance and I run a nurse led clinic every week. I also facilitate prompt individual remote treatment requests from rheumatology consultants across the country for those patients whose care is managed close to their home.
When I joined the Behçet’s team, the waiting time for a new referral to first review was over 26 weeks. To address this unacceptable delay, I introduced patient initiated follow up (PIFU) and am delighted to report that over the past 3 years. We have reduced the time from referral to first appointment to 12 weeks, exceeding the other two centres, based in London and Birmingham, by 3-6 months.
PIFU has also released capacity to facilitate rapid review, often within one week, for any patient who is unwell or struggling with the disease. This success is due to everyone in the team working collaboratively and has improved the patient experience which at recent audit demonstrated that over 90% of service users would be ‘extremely likely to recommend the service to friends, family or colleagues’.
I feel very lucky and privileged to work with such fantastic, dedicated colleagues and to help improve the lives of young people with this very rare and often debilitating disease.
As we celebrate International Nurses’ Day 2025, I would like to acknowledge and thank all the incredible nurses and students I work alongside and remind them to have confidence and courage to take the lead in any innovation they are passionate about. We really can make a difference for our patients.