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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