PM Rishi Sunak writes letter to resident suffering disease

Carol Fielding from Sharples has been battling pulmonary fibrosis since 2018. 

Pulmonary fibrosis is a process that causes lung scarring, in which fibrotic tissue blocks the movement of oxygen from inside the tiny air sacs in the lungs into the bloodstream. 

The 67-year-old, who has a background in nursing, had not heard of the condition before she found out she had it. 

Ms Fielding said: "In 2018 I first started with symptoms.

Carol Fielding with the letter she received from the PM (Image: Public)

"One of the consultants at Wythenshawe said would I be interested in a drugs trial, I said yes, read the information and looked it up on Google and that is when I saw pulmonary fibrosis and the life expectancy that came with it.

"It was a bit of a shock. Once I got my head around that a little bit, now I know, let's get on with it and see what happens next.

"You can split the disease into two groups, people who have no known cause of it and people who do have a known cause cause.

"I didn't get anything as I didn't meet the criteria. The other group, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, their lung function had to degrade to 80 per cent before they could get treatment.

"These were the NICE guidelines at the time."

Carol with Mark Logan MP (Image: Public)

NICE guidelines are evidence-based recommendations for health and care in England, made by The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

She continued: "I thought how can we address this? I had just finished the trial in 2020 and my consultant was saying to contact my MPs.

"Mark Logan has been brilliant. He was doing things in the background and getting other MPs onboard.

"Nobody knows about it, GPs don't know about it. We want to raise awareness, education and get more timely diagnoses.

Carol Fielding (Image: Public)

"I had to go to a consultant and have a CT scan, that could be delayed. It could take six months, it could take two years." 

Carol raised awareness with her local MP, Mr Logan, campaigning for access to medication to be easier and awareness of pulmonary fibrosis to be higher. 

After her trial finished, she bought medication from abroad, recommended to her by her consultant. She says that it is now more readily available in the UK. 

Carol added: "I got a couple of emails and thought they were scams, they said I had been invited to 10 Downing Street - I deleted them! 

The letter Carol received from the Prime Minister (Image: Public)

"Then I got a telephone call saying are you not going to Number 10? I explained to her I really wasn't very well. 

"Mark had put me forward as a Community Champion. 

"This letter then came, it is a lovely letter from the Prime Minister. It said how he was sorry I couldn't attend. 

"It wasn't pre-done, it was a personal letter." 

The letter also congratulated Carol for her work raising awareness of pulmonary fibrosis. 

To learn more about pulmonary fibrosis, visit: https://www.actionpf.org/