The Advanced MS Champions programme will continue to change the lives and provision of care for the 45,000 people living with advanced multiple sclerosis across the UK. People with advanced MS often experience severe, life-limiting symptoms on a daily basis and have stopped responding to MS treatment. Our Advanced MS Champions are there to provide a familiar face and specialist support for people with advanced MS who require complex social care and repatriation back into healthcare services.
There are 45,000 people living with advanced MS in the UK, managing multiple, ongoing, and severe MS symptoms. People with advanced MS have usually become unresponsive to Disease-Modifying Drugs (DMDs), and become isolated from local healthcare services due to the increasing demand for DMD management from the rest of the MS community. This has a negative impact on the health of people with advanced MS who are often unsure how to navigate healthcare services outside of their MS clinics.
The Advanced MS Champions programme will fund Advanced MS Champions in NHS Trusts across the UK. Advanced MS Champions support people with advanced MS to navigate health and social care services and offer specialist advice which local services may not be aware of. This eases the pressure on hospitals by reducing hospital admissions and minimises the burden on ambulatory services. This project will also support improved health and repatriation into healthcare services for people with advanced MS.
The Advanced MS Champions programme will reduce hospital admissions and other unnecessary additional strain on the NHS as a result of unmet complex care needs. The MS Trust's analysis of the programme so far indicates that one Advanced MS Champion can save the NHS 250,000 per year. The Advanced MS Champions programme will also give people living with advanced MS the specialist care they deserve, resulting in improved health, wellbeing and independence. No one should have to face MS alone.
