27 February 2017

The fourth meeting of the ILD Support Group took place at St Georges Hospital on Monday 27th January 2017  between 16:30 – 18:00.
This month we have been very pleased to invite Sheila Williams, a cardiac nurse by profession, to give a presentation on a very topical and important issue concerning the air quality in London. The presentation particularly focused on how patients can kept well informed and up to date on the quality of the air by subscribing to the free ‘airTEXT‘ service. This service was developed by a consortium of London boroughs, including Wandsworth, and further information can be found by visiting the following link: www.airtext.info.

The web based application, which can be viewed on you PC, Apple Mac desktops and laptops, is also available as a download for Apple and Android mobile devices. There are other similar applications available, however a very useful feature in this application is the additional information provided concerning the UV Index. This may not seem so important in the winter months, however, as Spring is beginning to exert its influence the UV Index becomes more relevant as some medication (Pirfenidone) can cause the skin to react in moderate levels of UV, which can cause painful rashes on the exposed areas, so it is important for those patients to use factor 50 sunblock before going outside. To have an application which can provide advanced warning is a very useful tool to help keep you healthy and also to help you plan your activities for the coming days.

You can view the slides from the presentation below. Use the ‘space bar‘ to pause/play the presentation.

 airTEXT is a free service for the public providing air quality alerts by SMS text message, email and voicemail and 3-day forecasts of air quality, pollen, UV and temperature across Greater London. airTEXT is an independent service, operated by Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC) Ltd in partnership with a Consortium made up of representatives from all the member local authorities, the GLA, Public Health England and the Environment Agency. The airTEXT Consortium is chaired by Paul Clift, Environmental Health Manager at Islington Borough Council.