The Breathlessness Campaign Daryl Freeman GP North Norfolk SCN Clinical Director
Eastern Region extension of pilot
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
The Breathless Campaign
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
The Algorythm
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
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
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
Questions