A TEAM of Southampton health specialists have become the first clinical team in the UK to experience a day in the life of their patients using an innovative 24-hour app.

Doctors, nurses, dietitians, researchers and pharmacists at University Hospital Southampton used the In My Shoes app at the same time to understand how Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis can impact patients’

lives.

The chronic conditions, which affects more than 300,000 people across the UK, are the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and can cause fatigue, significant abdominal pain, malnutrition and frequent and severe diarrhoea with bleeding.

The app has been developed by national charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK and Takeda UK and delivers notifications to users which include a three-minute warning to find a toilet and if a type of food may trigger symptoms.

It aims to break down stigma, reduce isolation and encourage people to think of ways they can support friends, family and colleagues living with IBD, as well as prompting conversations between patients and their healthcare teams.

“The app is a great way for us to have a conversation with our IBD patients about what they’re going through and it has really helped us relate to them in a very different way and a way we haven’t before,” said Anne Sanderson, clinical nurse specialist in gastroenterology at UHS.