Happy Pulmonary Rehabilitation week!
Pulmonary Rehabilitation programmes are empowering, life-enhancing programmes, which support patients to live well and do more despite their chronic lung disease. Pulmonary Rehab is a high value, cost-effective intervention. But we don't ned to tell you that!
This week it is Pulmonary Rehabilitation Week in the UK, an ideal time to celebrate existing programmes, and take a critical look at provision across our patch.
There have been significant developments in the world of Pulmonary Rehab in the last few years. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) ran a pilot to test the methodology of accrediting pulmonary rehabilitation services in the UK from October 2015 to September 2016. It worked with the BTS and the National COPD audit programme to develop a supportive quality improvement and accreditation pathway and a robust quality assurance process. The standards were based on the BTS quality standards on Pulmonary Rehab.
The BTS National COPD audit is providing data on the state of Pulmonary Rehab across the UK, which we know is not uniform in terms of access or quality. This is a great time to engage with quality improvement projects, business cases and commissioning as there is plenty of help available!
This week, why not take a closer look at some of the resources the BTS, BLF, and Respiratory Futures have on Pulmonary Rehab:
BLF pages on Pulmonary Rehabilitation, including patient information
The National COPD Audit programme, co-ordinated by the RCP
Pulmonary Rehab site locations map, based on National COPD audit
Respiratory Futures Pulmonary Rehab Programme pages - resources (SOPs, assessment forms, service specifications), QI tools, good practice examples
We hope you are all participating in the Pulmonary Rehab audit, which closes on July 31st. Get that data in on time!
