Pulmonary rehabilitation programmes - Are we wasting capacity?

Introduction and Objectives: Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) should be offered to all suitable people with COPD and other chronic respiratory conditions 1 . PR capacity remains a national issue 2 . Many PR providers, however, frequently struggle to receive sufficient referrals to maximise programme capacity. We assessed to what extend we utilise current capacity and compared this for all PR providers across the region. Methods: A regional PR Network was formed to enable improvements through sharing of best practice, peer support and the collection of meaningful data. A data set was agreed and during 2013/14 and 2014/15 quarterly data was collected from all East of England (EoE) providers. Amongst other data we collected the number of available PR places and the number of people starting PR for each locality. Results: During 2014/15 a maximum of 6,457 PR places were available in the EoE. During this year 4,706 people started PR, utilising 73% of regional capacity. Uptake of available PR places between sites varied 3-fold from 49% to 148%. Regional uptake did not change from the previous year. Conclusions: Although there is insufficient provision of PR places available regionally (53.8% of the proposed target) we identified only 73% of the available places were utilised. Uptake varied 3-fold between sites. It is essential that localities explore ways in which this can be optimised before a case is made to increase PR capacity with commissioners locally. The EoE PR Network is supporting providers to do this. References: 1. British Thoracic Society (BTS). Guideline on Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Adults. Thorax. 2013; 68 (suppl 2) 2. Pulmonary Rehabilitation: Time to Breathe Better (2015). Available at: https://goo.gl/TUL9Ec.