www.england.nhs.uk The Breathlessne ss Campaign Daryl Freeman GP North Norfolk SCN Clinical Director
Jan 04, 2016
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The Breathlessness Campaign
Daryl FreemanGP North NorfolkSCN Clinical Director
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Eastern Region extension of pilot
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• Public Awareness Campaign• Run from February-March this year
• Along the lines of the “Be Clear on Cancer” projects• PR
• Radio• Posters• TV snippets• Shopping malls
The Breathlessness Campaign
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The Breathless Campaign
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• The role of the SCN• Reality check at times• Proof read the communications sent to
• GPs• Pharmacists• Secondary Care
• Deal with anxieties of health care providers ( and there were many)
• Primary & Secondary Care• Produce an algorithm to help non specialist Primary Care
Physicians diagnose breathlessness
The Breathlessness Campaign
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The Algorythm
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• How successful has it been• How do we evaluate it?• No funding for detailed evaluation• Proxy markers
• Referrals to secondary care• CXR• Echocardiograms
• Confounding features• The time of year
The next steps & Challenges
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• Added on as a bit of an afterthought & not finalised yet • Not much funding!• Expectation that GP surgeries will do searches/collate data etc for free
• Pre & post public awareness• In depth interviews with pharmacists• Publicity- on line /articles/activity• NHS choices web page hits• Number of posters distributed• Output from face to face events• GP attendances with breathlessness as READ codes• Number of echocardiograms/CXRs arranged• BNP tests• GP referral for smoking cessation/pulmonary rehabilitation/spirometry tests• OP referrals for respiratory & cardiac opinion• QOF data heart failure & COPD• Referrals to IAPT or similar schemes
• My feeling is that we need to choose a surgery in each CCG & analyse in detail as many of the factors above are affected by winter pressures & winter “blues”.
Evaluation
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• Breathlessness campaign• Great idea• Wrong time!• Great opportunities have been missed in terms of evaluation
process• We were hampered by “purdah”
• We should encourage & support Primary Care in identifying patients with respiratory symptoms
• GRASP – COPD • Asthma audit tool • Smoking cessation style approach
• Make every contact count & don’t ignore breathlessness
SUMMARY
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Questions