Annual Review
Establishing a national programme for respiratory conditions at home
— Case study

Establishing a national programme for respiratory conditions at home

The South West AHSN is leading a partnership, Lung Health @home, to develop and test a new, national approach to managing long-term respiratory conditions at home. The project aims to increase access to Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) and to improve access and uptake of supported self-management, education, exercise and other activity.

Set up in January 2022, Lung Health @home was commissioned by NHS England teams NHS @home and Clinical Policy Unit.  

South West AHSN led the creation of the partnership, bringing together expert suppliers (Kaleidoscope Health & Care and Mtech Access) with UCL Partners and the wider AHSN Network.  

In 2022/23 the South West AHSN led the partnership to develop a programme of work to build a new Lung Health @home approach. This included: 

  • Development and testing of a Pulmonary Rehabilitation Search and Prioritisation Tool 
  • Horizon scanning for innovations and surfacing good practice 
  • Development of a framework that outlines what a good respiratory pathway looks like 
  • Development of an online framework including a range of resources, tools and guidance, making resources available through Future NHS 
  • Development of a Lung Health @home approach to identifying, implementing and evaluating pathway changes in PCNs 
  • National system engagement to identify Lung Health @home Demonstrator Sites and Fast Follower Sites  
  • Testing the Lung Health @home approach with four Demonstrator Sites to inform development of the framework and resources 
  • Scoping and commencing evaluation of Lung Health @home Sites 
  • Establishing governance and collaboration mechanisms, ensuring clinical guidance and oversight 
map of all lung health @home sites on map of the UK

We are in the early stages of implementation and testing across England through a number of sites.  

  • The four Demonstrator Sites took part in three workshops in November 2022 to learn about innovations identified in the horizon scan to support them to reflect on their local challenges and to consider potential pathway changes in their area. The sites are currently applying the newly developed Lung Health @home approach.  
  • Patient representatives have been involved in development of the Lung Health @home approach and resources through dedicated and facilitated sessions to ensure that materials for both patient and healthcare professionals support timely and useful support to patients. 
  • Clinicians are engaged and provide insight and guidance. Resources and learning are being actively shared with, and informed and vetted by, specialist respiratory clinicians. 
  • Sites have been selected to represent diverse places and populations, with all four sites serving communities that are more deprived. Most pathway changes under consideration are looking to address health inequalities of some sort (ethnicity, poor quality housing, elderly or homeless population, etc). 

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