COVID-19 IBD Risk Tool wins award

Sep 3, 2021

We were thrilled to win an award at the  Communique Awards for our work in creating and communicating our COVID-19 IBD Risk Tool for people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The 2021 Communique Awards took place on 1 September and recognise excellence and best practice in healthcare communications, and our Risk Tool was named the winner in the Agility and Flexibility category.

When the UK Government announced its COVID-19 shielding programme, there was no single national organisation with all the right data to find and assess the risks of COVID-19 for people with IBD.

Working with our brilliant partners and sponsors, we solved this problem by empowering patients to lead the way. Working remotely, we pulled together a team of clinical, patient, technical and communications experts to build and launch a patient-friendly self-assessment risk tool to reassure patients and support hospital IBD teams.

We managed to achieve this in just eight days from concept to launch. The tool enabled patients to do their own risk assessment and share the data securely with their hospital IBD team. By the time the first shielding period ended in August 2020, over 34,000 people with IBD had used the tool, and their results had been made available to 174 NHS Trusts and Health Boards.

It’s been so successful that it’s still being regularly used today, and more than 40,000 patients and their IBD teams have benefitted to date. You can read the full story of the COVID-19 Risk Tool here.

Winning this award is a fantastic recognition of the huge effort that went into creating an innovative tool that empowered patients and supported the hard work of IBD teams in extremely challenging circumstances.

But the real reward was in helping people with IBD over the past year of concern and uncertainty, and we are so pleased that the tool has received positive feedback from both patients and clinicians.

With thanks to our sponsors Amgen, Galapagos, Gilead and Tillotts UK for their generous financial support, without which the Risk Tool would not have been possible.

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