Respiratory team goes into community to help patients
02/04/2019
This article is more than five years old.
Oxfordshire people with long-term respiratory illnesses are benefiting from a pilot project which aims to improve patient care of patients through earlier diagnosis, enhanced holistic and end of life care, and extra focus on people who are at risk of being admitted to hospital in an emergency.
Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust has worked in partnership with Oxfordshire CCG (OCCG), Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) to design the integrated respiratory team pilot project which will run in North Oxfordshire and Oxford City, initially until 2020.
Respiratory illnesses are more common in those areas than in other parts of Oxfordshire.
People in North Oxfordshire living with COPD and asthma have visited the first community-based clinic in Chipping Norton which was set up late last year by OCCG, supported by pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim.
Community-based clinics will also run at Horsefair Surgery in Banbury and at St Bartholomew's Medical Centre in Oxford.
The new integrated team enhances existing community, hospital and primary care by providing a consultant to work in the community alongside additional respiratory nurses and physiotherapists working with respiratory GPs, a dedicated psychologist, a pharmacist, dedicated smoke-free advisor from Smokefreelife Oxfordshire, and a specialist in palliative care support.
The project is being staffed by NHS clinicians and other professionals from OUH, Oxford Health and local GPs.
Dr Karen Kearley, who is leading the project on behalf of OCCG, said: "This project creates an opportunity for a range of health professionals involved in the care of adult patients with COPD and asthma to work more closely alongside each other to share expertise and support each other to provide high quality care for patients.
"We aim to provide more care at home and closer to home to reduce the risk of people having to be admitted to hospital and to improve their ongoing symptoms."
Dr Juliet Roberts, Medical Director at Boehringer Ingelheim, added: "We are pleased to be supporting this dedicated multidisciplinary team in re-evaluating their pathway to improve outcomes for patients with respiratory problems.
"The Department of Health and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry developed this framework to enable NHS organisations and the pharmaceutical industry to pool skills, experience and resources in a transparent way to deliver successful projects to benefit patients."