IMPRESS (IMProving and Integrating RESpiratory Services in the NHS)
A collaboration between British Thoracic Society (BTS) and General Practice Airways Group (GPIAG).
Our aim is to provide the clinical leadership to drive improvements in the support and care of the population with or at risk of respiratory disease so that everyone gets the best care in the right place at the right time by the right people for their needs. We are providing, we hope, a role model for integration, by working collaboratively with clinicians, managers, commissioners, social care representatives and lay members across primary and secondary care. Our first and extremely popular publication remains the Jargon Buster which seeks to explain NHS and social care jargon to clinicians and others, giving respiratory examples. It is available online where it is regularly updated: http://www.impressresp.com/JargonBuster/JargonBusterAZ.aspx
In addition to our existing publications we have now published as free downloadable publications
- Update on procurement dos and don’ts including a new story about a successful bid for a new community COPD service from an NHS community provider
- Response to the Big Care Debate, the DH consultation on its Green Paper Shaping the Future of Care Together
- in preparation for the publication of the consultation on the National Strategy, new pages on pulmonary rehabilitation, spirometry and networks, in preparation for the publication of the consultation on the National Strategy
- Presentations How to win friends and influence people about how to use data and relationship building to achieve change in services, particularly primary care from the Salford team of June Roberts, Dr N Diar Bakerly and Anna Thompson, and Advice to NHS providers (focusing on community providers) about how to work with commissioners successfully from Sharon Haggerty from NHS Darlington.
- Free webcasts of the presentations at our highly successful first conference Commissioning World Class Services for Patients With Respiratory Disease. Watch out for the date in May 2010 of our second conference!
These extend our resources that include
- Best practice guidance on developing a respiratory service specification including a sample specification for COPD
- Delivering Respiratory Care Closer to Home - giving examples of how to make the shift from traditional outpatient care
- Commissioning a community COPD service - a guide to procurement, based on a casestudy in Somerset PCT including do's and don'ts for clinicians,commissioners and bidders
- A Vision for Respiratory Care - Our response to Lord Darzi.
- Guide to respiratory coding - essential reading for clinicians and coders
- Workforce standards - key competences and standards for the respiratory workforce. This asks eight questions of commissioners and offers 5 standards.
- Consultant Physicians in Integrated Respiratory Care - making the case for a new role
- Principles, Definitions & Standards for Pulmonary Rehabilitation
- British Thoracic Society statement on criteria for specialist referral and a model referral letter
- Specification for sleep services - that coincided with the publication on 26 March 2008 of the NICE Health Technology Appraisal on continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP).
In addition, we have distributed over 3000 free copies of an educational programme funded by the DH on communication skills called Effective Care - Effective Communication: Living and Dying with COPD. Some copies are still available. For more information click here. We are also piloting its use in the Bristol health community and will be running a train the trainer programme on 4th and 5th of February at Cranage Hall in Manchester.
We continue to make detailed submissions to the PbR team on coding and tariff issues to support better commissioning of respiratory care. There is a long lead time to implementation, but we are arguing for respiratory hospital at home and pulmonary rehabilitation tariffs.
As part of this, "we want to draw commissioners attention" to the possibilities of more sophisticated contracting, such as incentivising the appropriate use of telephone consultations as part of the shift of outpatient care.
For more information please see our website.
Network website: www.impressresp.com
Network contact: Siân Williams, sian.health@googlemail.com