New PCRS resource sets out what good respiratory care looks like

A Respiratory Service Framework setting out the components of optimal primary and community respiratory care has been published by PCRS.

The document has been designed by the Service Development Committee (SDC), to give commissioners and service development managers of primary care networks and integrated care systems benchmarks for improving care and reducing variability. It is intended to provide a starting point by describing the scope of best respiratory care and the services required to design a holistic and integrated respiratory service. 

The RSF authors are multidisciplinary clinicians working in roles where they not only deliver a high quality respiratory service but are involved in the design and implementation of care pathways in their own regions. This framework has drawn from their work and experience in different regions of the UK.

The document currently provides a broad description of what is needed at each stage of care, from primary prevention to end of life care. It is an overarching framework of what good care looks like and is complementary to a variety of PCRS documents and resources, many of which will be signposted via hyperlinks from within the RSF. An example of this is the PCRS Fit to Care document which will demonstrate how an ideal respiratory service would need to be staffed in terms of training and numbers.

PCRS intends to build on this by adding links to examples of existing good practice, any relevant research and the contact details of people willing to share work they are doing.

The document is meant to be a “living” entity – it is a skeleton upon which other resources, documents, examples of good practice can be placed. Once complete it is envisaged that a commissioner/provider or clinician can look at a section and find linked to that section resources which can be utitlised to shape a respiratory service in their own locality.

The aim is to populate the RSF with real life examples of good practice as well as guidelines and resources from established respiratory organisations. So PCRS is looking for examples of good respiratory programmes or projects which may complement the RSF.

Examples could be:

• A programme of reducing pollution in your region e.g. a GP who is working with the local Council to develop a more pedestrian friendly town
• A programme to address inequalities of health in your region by working with schools
• A novel smoking cessation programme or way of delivering care to populations who often are overlooked.

Dr Daryl Freeman, PCRS Service Development Lead: “This document standardises care and brings everybody up to the optimal level of practice. It describes holistic and wrapped-around respiratory care with the aim of making sure that the patient doesn't get lost between all the steps. For me the key to that will be the link to Fit to Care to ensure that we don't just suggest how many healthcare professionals are needed to provide a particular service but also that they are trained to the right level.

“The PCRS has some great clinicians – all of you working at the coal face of primary care, delivering care to our patients with respiratory disease often in very difficult and constrained circumstances. We need to hear from you; with your examples of how to deliver this great care at a time when the NHS is emerging from a prolonged period of austerity, and respiratory care, until the publication of the NHS Long Term Plan, had been ignored in favour of other long term conditions.

“So please email the PCRS ([email protected]) with your ideas, examples of good practice, local guidelines so that we can populate the RSF and provide a working example of good care to others.”