Key content and messages from the IMPRESS guidance

• This paper reviews the evidence, explains what Pulmonary Rehabilitation is, how it works, its value and why it should be commissioned 
• Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) reduces morbidity, mortality and hospital attendances in people with COPD disabled by their disease.
• PR should receive commissioning priority given its proven clinical and cost effectiveness and relative value compared to many of our other interventions for COPD.
• It answers the questions asked by commissioners who may have no current service, a service with insufficient capacity, one that does not meet patient?s expectations, or one that is failing to achieve accept- able completion rates.
• A COPD pathway for a patient is more likely to show a positive effect the more components of the COPD tpathway it has working together in an integrated multi-faceted programme - including an interface with self-management support,
  quit smoking support and oxygen assessment, 
• It supplements the Commissioning Pack for COPD to be issued by the DH England, including a section on PR (due early 2012).