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KGH Arthritis Support Group joins the IFI revolution

Tuesday 9th October 2007

King George Hospital Support Group explains below how IFI accredited facility, Redbridge Sports and Leisure Centre in London has given their group a new lease of life.

Our small self-help group, King George Hospital Rheumatology Support Group, began increasing its profile in Redbridge last October by obtaining a small grant from the London North East Community Foundation. This led to more funding from the Lottery and the Redbridge Primary Care Trust, to whom we would like to express our thanks.

We had great plans to run an exercise programme in addition to several self-help groups in the Borough. We soon had 6 self-help groups running but could not get even one exercise group started. We struggled to organise something with the Physiotherapists at King George Hospital for months with no success only to find the NHS invented red tape! We had the money but could not spend it on our exercise programme. We contacted private physiotherapists willing to run the programme but we then were thwarted at every bid for a location. Finally in desperation we surfed the Internet and found the IFI. Julie Cracknell came to our rescue. She recommended our local centre which the IFI had accredited - Redbridge Sports & Leisure.

Our programme started on September 5^th with Sally Adams a fully qualified instructor for people with long-term illness and disabled participants. We love her!

Our sessions are always different and everyone has found great benefit from the regime. The sessions are once a week and geared to the abilities of the participants. We gather afterwards at the lovely restaurant overlooking the indoor tennis for lunch.

We recommend it to everyone of you that has not done anything for years it is never too late and the rewards are amazing.

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