COVID-19 – DMARD Monitoring Changes

The Combined Heads of Service for Rheumatology for the Northern Region have published a statement on Changes to Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drug (DMARD) monitoring and prescribing in Rheumatology (24/04/20) – which includes the following advice:

Monitoring intervals can be extended in patients with previously stable blood testing at the prescribers’ discretion.

It is likely that the vast majority of patients who have DMARDs monitored and prescribed in the community will have stable monitoring blood tests; hence we feel it is appropriate to relax the requirement for DMARD monitoring for 6 months.

However, PLEASE NOTE, as prescribers, we need to be more vigilant for patterns in abnormal bloods from previous tests.

Under current circumstances patients may need to be recalled for bloods SOONER despite the general relaxing of monitoring protocols.