What is TB (tuberculosis)?
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex bacteria. It can affect any part of the body but most commonly the lungs. It can be transmitted via the respiratory system by an individual who is sputum smear-positive for the bacteria and has a productive cough. For most people who become infected with TB, the immune system can control the bacteria and stop them growing.
If the bacteria become inactive, then this is called latent TB. People with latent TB have no symptoms, do not feel unwell, are not infectious, but can develop TB disease later in life if they become immunosuppressed. Whereas people with active TB disease typically have symptoms of the disease.
General enquiries
Other contact information
Make an appointment
Please complete the TB Service North Central London - South Hub online Self Referral form to arrange an appointment.
Address
Tuberculosis (TB) Service North Central London
Level 3, Kenwood Wing, Whittington Hospital,
Magdala Avenue,
London, N19 5NF. Map
The common signs and symptoms of TB are:
- Unexplained weight loss
- Unexplained fever, particularly at night
- Unexplained cough lasting longer than three weeks, especially if you are producing sputum.
- Unexplained breathlessness or persisting chest pain.
If you develop any of the symptoms, you may consider visiting your occupational health and wellbeing department or your general practitioner (GP).
The UCLH and Whittington Health have a long history of working together to benefit patients and staff and have now agreed a shared vision for even closer collaboration moving forward.
One area where our teams have worked together for many years is the tuberculosis (TB) service based at Whittington Health. The services offer screening and treatment for TB, aiming to make it easier for people to get treated and to reduce the number of cases of this infectious condition.
Globally, TB is the leading infectious killer, with more than 10 million people falling ill with TB every year and over 1 million dying globally. Around 5,000 people are reported as having active TB in England each year. Early diagnosis, treatment and contact- tracing are key to make sure that people can recover, and the infection doesn’t spread to others.
The UCLH and Whittington Health TB services form the ‘South Hub’ of the North Central London TB network. Based in a purpose-built clinic at the Whittington, it is staffed by clinical staff (drs, nurses and microbiologists) from both organisations including clinic leads Dr Tino Capocci and Lusha Kellgren.
The service offers outpatient and inpatient services for TB patients including those with complex medical needs, such as children, prisoners, HIV and TB infections together, homeless people and multi-drug resistant TB. Since starting in 2019, the team has held over 25,000 patient consultations and treated over 1,500 people with TB, including those with latent TB who have the infection but don’t have any symptoms. Inpatients with TB are managed at Whittington or (especially for complex patients such as MDR tuberculosis or patients requiring thoracic or neurosurgery) at UCLH including on T08 ward, at Westmorland St or at NHNN.
Every Thursday the whole team gets together at the Whittington for their MDT where they discuss new diagnoses across both UCLH and the Whittington, as well as in the community. All patients attending the TB service are eligible to take part in research and the team is very proud of the numerous studies that have been carried out to improve the diagnosis, care and treatment of people with TB.
Staff at both UCLH and Whittington Health have access to each organisation’s IT systems through honorary contracts which means that patient information can be shared where needed with the right safeguards in place.
Dr Mike Brown, divisional clinical director for infectious diseases, said: “The TB service is a fantastic example of partnership working in practice for the benefit of staff and patients. As one service, we bring together expertise from across UCLH and Whittington Health and, crucially, we have enabled many more patients to be involved in research studies to improve treatments.
“Initially we thought that working on different IT systems could be a challenge, but we have worked around this to make it a (mostly) smooth process and not an IT headache. We really are one big happy clinical family, and several of us can regularly be spotted cycling between Highgate and Warren Street to see patients and colleagues.”
A recent patient also agrees that the service is working really well, “It feels like this is the way all departments should be run - it is very efficient and happy, and everything runs like clockwork,” they said.
For further information, view Tuberculosis services on the Whittington website.
